Who Are the AWFULs? Trump Hates Them, So They’re Doing Something Right

Nomenclature is potent. Donald Trump loves a nickname, and there is power in naming things. Once a thing has a name, it can be categorized, judged, explained, and perhaps satirized and belittled. Over the last decade, Trump has had wild success with giving names to his rivals. Most are on about the eighth-grade level, but they have often subsequently flattened these rivals, sucked their power right out of them—Low Energy Jeb, Little Marco, Crooked Hillary, Sleepy Joe. This naming phenomena wasn’t limited to individuals. Groups often gave themselves nicknames: the KHIVE (Harris supporters), Pantsuit Nation (Clinton Supporters), MAHA (RFK Jr. supporters), and of course MAGA (Trump supporters).

And sometimes these groups were given pejorative nicknames: Karens (humorless women), and now AWFULs (affluent, white, female, urban liberals). The first time I saw someone use the acronym to describe this group was on election night 2024, when Internet commentator Erick Erickson tweeted: “Affluent White Female Urban Liberals. The AWFULs radicalized a lot of people against them. Nichole Wallace, Rachael Maddow, and most of the rest of the women at MSNBC really have played a powerful role in what is happening tonight” (misspellings Erickson’s, not mine).