Turning It Around: Progressive Strategies for Challenging Right-Wing Populism in the Era of MAGA

The ascendancy of right-wing populism and neo-liberalism has sapped many, if not most, progressives’ optimism. Since President Donald Trump got re-elected, it appears that things are getting worse every day. The movement toward a harsher, more unequal and less secure society, however, is not confined to the United States—though its expression there may be the most extreme and glaring. What is to be done? In 2019, in response to Trump's first election, Walter DeKeseredy and Elliot Currie complied an edited volume— Progressive Justice in an Age of Repression: Strategies for Challenging the Rise of the Right —that aimed at rejuvenating progressive scholars amid bowdlerization. At the 2026 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences conference, the authors of this article led a conversation drawing inspiration from DeKeseredy and Currie and contriving further strategies to combat the rise of authoritarianism in the United States, academia, and around the world. This piece expands that dialog to suggest bold, creative strategies to challenge the MAGA agenda and restart the movement toward a sustaining and humane world order. We hope it inspires novel research, social action, and policies that promote true justice for all.