Rather than debate Republican opponents on policy differences, Democrats are planning to weaponize former President Donald Trump’s “MAGA” slogan — which, for the record, stands for “Make America Great Again.”

Last month, when former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchison, whose political roots can trace back to Ronald Reagan and who is no Trump supporter, declared he was running for the GOP nomination, rival Democrats immediately branded him a “MAGA” extremist.

“Whether it is the Democratic Party or President Biden, they are certainly trying to make MAGA the issue in the 2024 election, and it illustrates their belief that Trump is someone they would love to run against,” Hutchinson told The Washington Times. “So they trying to pigeonhole all Republicans in that same way.”

The Times noted further:

Trump played no hand in writing House Republicans’ new border security bill, but that didn’t stop Democrats from blasting it as MAGA racism. And the former president is not part of the GOP’s plans to pursue deep spending cuts to tame the government’s runaway debt, but Mr. Biden still called it MAGA austerity.

Make America Great Again may have propelled Mr. Trump to the White House in 2016, but Democrats now believe the label is political poison that will dent politicians and policies just through the name alone.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) repeatedly used the phrase “MAGA extremism” to rip Republicans over several issues like budget negotiations and recent Supreme Court rulings.

In a national survey conducted by NBC News last month, among 1,000 adults polled, 24% expressed a positive view of the MAGA movement, while 45% had a negative view. The survey also highlighted that a portion of respondents were either unfamiliar with the slogan or unsure of their stance. Notably, 37% of those surveyed held a “very negative” view of the movement.

In addition, the Black Lives Matter movement was much more popular, and so were the Republican and Democratic Parties.

By comparison, many Republicans embrace the label, and, as the Times reports, it is almost a prerequisite in many parts of the country.

President Joe Biden has also embraced the use of the term.

“There is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country,” Biden claimed — falsely — in a speech at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia in September.