Polling shows that “MAGA” has a far more negative perception in the mind of the average person than “Republican.” Explicitly tying the two together is a solid political strategy.
That and the fact that there's a not insignificant number of people who are center-right politically and identify as Republican but don't like Trump or the recent direction of the party. It's not a majority or even a plurality of Republicans, but it's enough to have an impact in close races.
Biden attacking "MAGA Republicans" instead of "Republicans" gives the center-right voters a permission structure to support Democrats because the choice gets reframed from "us (Democrats) vs. you (Republicans)" to "us (the sane ones) vs. them (the crazies)".
This is why we need a proportional representation political system. Then MAGA party is it’s own thing, where they have tantrums in the corner and we ignore them.
Right up there with republicans constantly tying democrats discussing social policy to communism. Can’t even have a discussion about social policy without some right wing nut going off the rails about socialism and communism.
It's also a very deliberate strategy to give a little bit of space for people who've identified as Republicans in the past but refuse to follow Trump. He's saying that you don't have to identify as a Democrat, or even necessarily drop the Republican party as a whole, but rather you simply have to recognize the obvious fact that Trump represents a major departure from the Republican party of the past and refuse to go along with it.
Of course, the part that isn't being said is that the old Republican party is well and truly dead and buried, but speaking diplomatically like that is very good politics and can help him net some more moderate votes in tighter margin states.
They can just say Republicans it means the same thing.
It really doesn't. For example there's a bunch of Republican voters in Ohio who just enshrined Abortion access into their State Constitution but that action is inconsistent with the idea of MAGA.
MAGA Republican's aren't keeping people like Brian Fitzpatrick (Pennsylvania) in office, that's being done by "Republicans" or "Moderate Republicans".
So no, they ain't all "MAGA" and we are clearing seeing Republican voters push back on MAGA in many places.
Nope. I think he’s right to keep saying MAGA. It drives home that they didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t, don’t, won’t and can’t make America the piece of shit they want it to be.