Renewing American identity and values
The people are rising to save the American republic
The MAGA movement is based in a conservative impulse, not racism, fascism, or xenophobia.
MAGA conservatism believes in limited government. It maintains that the national economy should drive itself through the talent, creativity, hard work, and initiative of employees and entrepreneurs in the private sector. It has a bias against big corporations, and sometimes calls for their breakup, but not always, depending on the role that corporations in particular economic sectors play in the productive process. It is not against government regulation of the economy, but it wants to keep them to a minimum. Unnecessary, costly, and time-consuming regulations should be avoided.
MAGA conservatism is against Big Government and governmental programs that are designed to resolve social problems. It believes that many government programs since the New Deal have fostered dependency and have undermined individual responsibility and initiative, and they involve unnecessary costs to the taxpayer. It does not deny that government social programs have their place, as represented by social security and Medicare, but such programs should not define the essence of government. Private charities should be dynamic in complementing the role of the government with respect to fundamental human needs.
In line with its opposition to Big Government, MAGA conservatism is opposed to the bureaucratic administrative state, in which numerous executive departments and government agencies have acquired de facto autonomy, beyond the control of the elected representatives of the people. Formally under the authority of the Congress and the President, the agencies in reality do not bend to the will of the President or the Congress. They often implement policies and goals without the knowledge or approval of the people. MAGA conservativism wants to reduce and reign in the bureaucratic state, and subject it to the control and regulation of the President and the Congress.
MAGA conservatism believes in peace through strength. It believes that there are several authoritarian states in the world which constitute a threat to the national security of the United States. Therefore, the USA should maintain the strongest military in the world, including the most advanced military force with respect to artificial intelligence. It does not believe, however, that the USA ought to involve itself in the affairs of the world, through endless wars or projects of regime change, which it sees as too costly. The strong military force of the United States should function primarily as a deterrent. Military forces should be engaged in military action or stationed on military bases in various foreign lands as little as possible.
MAGA conservatism is anti-communist and anti-socialist, which is consistent with its anti-Big Government philosophy. However, its view on this question is rooted in a profound ignorance of the characteristics of the nations that are constructing socialism in the world today. Its view is focused on the purges and forced agriculture of the Soviet Union in the times of Stalin, and on the failures of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution in Mao’s China. It has a once-sided view of these historic events in the history of world socialism, not seeing that they were partially a consequence of idealist errors. But more importantly, MAGA’s view is based on nothing more than superficial observation of the nations that have been constructing socialism during the last half century. It does not see that said nations are forging new understandings of the role of the state in the economy, which include space for private corporations as well as public-private cooperation in the development of the national economy. And it knows nothing of their development of people’s democracies, which are more advanced than representative democracy and have demonstrated their capacity to attain political stability. MAGA conservatives are aware that the Chinese economy is strong and expanding, and that the persistence of Cuba in the face of U.S. hostility is surprising; but they do not investigate the extent to which the evolving characteristics of socialism explain these phenomena.
MAGA conservatism wants to unleash American productivity by removing unnecessary restraints on production that are imposed in the name of environmental protection. It believes that the claimed environmental impacts are exaggerated or not demonstrated, in many cases. It proposes new investigations and reevaluations of the estimated environmental impacts with respect to proposed energy producing projects in a form that is free of the ideology of climate alarmism. In the first days, the Trump administration has emitted a number of executive orders designed to unleash American productivity. (See “Trump’s economic plan for America: A non-imperialist proposal for strengthening the national economy,” January 24, 2025). In addition to unleashing American productivity, MAGA conservatives believe that the reduction of regulatory constraints on the production of energy will lower energy costs for consumers, and therefore lower prices across the board.
MAGA conservatism believes that the control of immigration is vital for the wellbeing of the national economy. Uncontrolled immigration distorts the supply and demand for labor, and it provokes higher unanticipated costs with respect to housing, education, and medical services. It also has consequences with respect to the physical safety of citizens. (See “Unregulated & uncontrolled immigration: Trump seeks to rectify a historic crime of the political establishment,” January 28, 2025).
MAGA conservatives believe in merit-based evaluation in employment and promotion and in college and university admissions. It affirms the declaration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963 that all should be judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skin. The MAGA movement affirms the fundamental goals of the Civil Rights Movement during the period 1955-1965. It believes that there are differences among individuals with respect to talent, intelligence, initiative and moral character, but it makes no claims with respect to the distribution of these qualities according to race or ethnicity. It takes as given, on the basis of everyday observation, that all racial and ethnic groups are represented among those Americans who possess virtuous and desirable qualities. It insists that all individuals should be judged on the basis of their individual qualities and not on the basis of racial and ethnic group membership. In accordance with this view of the MAGA movement, Trump has signed a number of executive orders eliminating DEI (see “The national turn against DEI: Renewing the progressive concept of equal opportunity for all,” January 31, 2025).
MAGA conservatism has a spiritual worldview rooted in the Judaic-Christian-Islamic tradition. It believes that human beings are living organisms composed of both body and soul. It believes that strong families, neighborhoods, local communities, and civil society organizations are necessary for societal and individual wellbeing. It believes that truth is not constructed through narratives that promote individual or group interests; it believes, rather, that truth is discerned through critically listening dialogue across ideological differences in the context of observation of empirical reality and appreciation for the cultural heritage of humanity. It believes that the broad societal embrace of such spiritual characteristics is a necessary check on the potential for collective self-destruction. It maintains that human life, collectively and personally, has purpose and meaning.
MAGA conservatives believe in the democratic principles proclaimed at the founding of the American Republic. They see the American Revolution as unleashing forces that have made the American Republic the freest and most economically advanced nation in human history. They discern a progressive unfolding of democratic practices in the nation. They see a historic process in which undemocratic practices are named over the course of time by the people themselves and overcome through political demands put forth by the people. They see the civil rights and the women’s rights movements, in their initial stages, as the clearest manifestation of this tendency toward democratic evolution.
MAGA conservatives, therefore, have an essentially positive view of American history. They see America as having played a leading role in the formulation and practice of democratic ideas and political systems. In their reading of American history, economic liberties and political freedoms, combined with significant technological achievements, are the foundation of American greatness, which reached its zenith in the post-World War II era.
To be sure, such an interpretation of American history is incomplete and one-sided. The conquest of the indigenous nations in what would become U.S. territory, combined with the strategic integration of the expanding American economy into economic structures being forged by European colonial domination of most of the world from 1492 to 1914, were central causal factors in the rise of the United States of America to world hegemonic political and economic power. But understanding of these fundamental facts should be integrated into the essentially correct progressive view of the nation that Americans have forged and continued to express. It is politically immature to use consciousness of these fundamental facts pertaining to American conquest and imperialism as a pretext for unpatriotic dismissiveness of America and its project of democracy, as the so-called left has done in recent decades. Such leftist political immaturity is rejected by the rising MAGA movement.
MAGA conservatism seeks to renew national unity of purpose and national identity, forged through the engaged and active participation of all races, ethnic groups, and religions in a project to Make America Great Again. It seeks to revitalize patriotism, not with superficial slogans, but through a profound reconsideration of the American project.
The rise of populist nationalism
Steve Bannon, in an interview by Ross Douthat (“Steve Bannon on ‘Broligarchs’ vs. Populism,” The New York Times, January 31, 2025), described the rise of populist nationalism since 2008. The MAGA Movement, he said, is rooted in the Tea Party, which was provoked by the financial collapse of 2008, brought on by the criminal conduct of the entire established order, including the top accounting and law firms, none of whom were ever held accountable. The Tea Party consisted of classic limited government conservatives, and it was the first phase of a populist revolt that gave rise to the emergence of populist nationalists, different from conservative global elitists. The populist nationalists were reacting to the fact that people’s lives were being destroyed, and the country was losing its way, because of high value manufacturing jobs going to China, and immigrant visas being granted to high-tech workers willing to work at wages one-third lower than native workers. At the beginning of the Republican primaries, Trump stood out from the other candidates through a discourse that improvised on the headlines and that resonated emotionally with the people with populist nationalist ideas. Trump went on to formulate a populism that was both cultural and economic, and that constituted an attack on the established order. His approach resonated with the working class and with the middle and lower-middle class. Trump would be joined by political operatives, including Bannon, who formulated policies connected to these ideas, designed to put America first and to put the American citizen first. The political operatives soon discovered that the issue of immigration particularly worked with these ideological and social sectors, which was aided by the fact that progressive Democrats who historically had been pro-workers and pro-labor switched to advocacy of open borders, allowing the entry of immigrant labor whose willingness to work at lower wages was an economic threat to the American worker, and casting the concern with immigration as a racial or xenophobic thing. At the same time, the Democratic Party, the historic champion of the working class, was increasingly supported by wealthy donors and a credentialed class coming out of college and graduate schools, and was supporting an international world order that stood on the shoulders of the working class and middle class, which was increasingly shut out from the American Dream. Because of these dynamics, Trump was able to capture the Republican Party nomination in 2016 and the presidential elections by a narrow margin.
But most of the congressmen and senators of the Republican Party during Trump’s first term were standard stock Republicans, neoliberal neocons. In the first year of Trump’s first presidency, Bannon tried to push through a $1 trillion infrastructure plan throughout the world, envisioning the rebuilding of the world’s shipyards and transportation infrastructure as a stimulus to world commerce. But the Republicans in the Congress and the Senate were opposed to this New Deal type proposal. The Republican Party establishment did not want industrial policy based in populist nationalism.
Following the first Trump administration, Bannon stated, a number of donors began to support Trump, and in addition, a number of conservative intellectuals established small think tanks, including the Domestic Policy Council, American First Policy Institute, and Renewing America. And the Heritage Foundation undertook Project 2025. These think tanks worked on translating populist nationalist promises to the people into policies. And they were networking, functioning as a team. The formulation of clear policies during the period 2020 to 2024, with a focus on industrial policy and economic issues, enabled more people to see that populist nationalists aren’t just of bunch of white racist nativists. Therefore, populist nationalism was able to expand its base of support among the people, which was evident in the presidential elections of 2024, in which Trump expanded his support from its 2016 and 2020 levels among blue collar voters, white voters, and middle class Hispanic voters, on the basis of a populist critique of the economy for the past twenty-five years, control of immigration, and the deconstruction of the bureaucratic state. By 2024, the Republican Party had been transformed into a party of populist leaning voters.
For his second administration, Bannon maintains, Trump has a much stronger mandate to implement an industrial policy, implement a scale down of the bureaucratic state, and get control of immigration, including the deportation of people in the country illegally. And the Trump administration is much more prepared. Before taking office, Trump flooded the zone with cabinet nominations. On the first days of his second administration, Trump has launched a blitz of executive orders addressing the key issues of populist nationalism, which are supported by the majority of the people, and which have stunned the Democratic Party and leftists.
Renewing American national identity and pride in America
Former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan warned the nation decades ago “against unrestricted immigration, forever wars, and ‘free trade’ agreements that ultimately hollowed out Middle America,” as has been expressed by Darrel Dow (“Picking Up Buchanan’s Torch on Immigration,” Chronicles, January 21, 2025). It was a future for the nation being forged, without consulting the American people, by several culprits, according to Buchanan. Corporations had an interest in the availability of illegal workers to drive wages down. Neoliberal economists launched an ideological attack on the principle of the sovereign rights of states, portraying the state itself as an outdated structure in a globalized world. Race-hustling politicians and activists, supported by big foundations, seeking to increase political power through the mobilization of ethnic voting blocks. And Catholic and Protestant churches who naively championed amnesty in the name of feeding the hungry, inadvertently surrendering to the politics of guilt.
Buchanan addressed what he considered to be the underlying question at the root of the conflict over immigration, namely, what holds a nation together? He argued that the proponents of immigration held to the myth of a “creedal nation” held together by a common set of political principles and ideals, such as liberty, democracy, and equality; they maintained that everyone could learn and assimilate the national creed, regardless of their culture of origin. But Buchanan rejected this argument. He maintained that the creedal nation ideology overestimates the malleability and plasticity of human beings; and it underestimates the importance of historical, racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural roots. He argued that without these deeper ties forged by common roots, a nation’s sense of identity becomes fragile and vulnerable. Nations are built on a common heritage, language, and values. A vital nation must maintain its collective sense of belonging and loyalty, a collective sense of a shared past and a common future. Buchanan wrote that “patriotism is the soul of a nation. It is what keeps nations alive.”
Therefore, Buchanan warned, immigration must proceed at a pace that does not outrace the assimilation of newcomers into the shared cultural framework. Unchecked immigration is a threat to the unity, the common identity, and the cultural cohesion of the nation.
Buchanan noted that in 1960, the population of the United States was 180 million, with 89% of European descent, 10% black, and 1% Hispanic and Asian. In contrast, the demographic projections were indicating a population by 2050 of 240 million, with a Hispanic population of 24%.
Dow implies that the assimilation of the European immigrants into the American cultural framework was straightforward. In fact, the arrival of millions of immigrants from 1865 to 1914 from Ireland and eastern and southern Europe, the great majority of whom were Catholics and Jews who did not speak English, generated a nativist opposition to immigration, in spite of the fact that the massive immigration was legal and controlled, as open immigration was required to supply manual laborers for a rapidly growing economy in an expanding national territory. Some ethnic intellectuals proposed a concept of cultural pluralism to deal with the unfolding ethnic and cultural conflict, envisioning cultural pluralism within a national unity. But the great mass of the sons and daughters of the European immigrants of the period was oriented to assimilation, especially the learning of English, out of appreciation for the economic opportunities in America, in spite of a certain level of discrimination, especially in social matters. A deal was struck. The immigrants and their descendants would speak English only and would assimilate the American cultural framework, with the amendment that Catholicism and Judaism would be included as acceptable religions. The immigrants embraced the deal, and through five generations, have become the most patriotic of Americans, contributing their labor and shedding their blood in defense of their country.
A case can be made that the cultural difference between a Latin American and an English-speaking North American is greater than the difference between, say, an Italian Catholic and Polish Jew. This was indeed the claim of the black nationalist tendency in the African-American movement during the period 1964 to 1972. If so, it would mean that the post-1965 immigrants to America, largely from Latin America and Asia, would not be so oriented to assimilation and would constitute a greater challenge to the necessary preservation of national unity.
In addition, the post-1965 immigrants were arriving to an America that no longer accepted the assimilationist model that had driven the European immigrant experience. Forged by militant voices among black, Latino, and Native American youth in the period 1964-1972, the concept of cultural colonialism became prevalent, in which it was argued that requiring immigrants to assimilate the culture of the new land constituted a form a cultural oppression. However, the implications of this concept were never adequately addressed in public debate, as the movements of the period disintegrated. The failure to address the interrelated issues of cultural pluralism and cultural colonialism compounded the implications of the reality of de facto uncontrolled immigration in the United States, which had never been approved by the people in public debate.
We see, therefore, that corporations, neoliberal economists, foundations, politicians, and churches promoted a new and challenging form of immigration, with illegal immigration tolerated in fact, without asking for the approval and support of the American people, and without putting forth a concept of cultural pluralism within national unity, or some other concept that might define how the nation ought to move forward in its understanding of itself as a nation with de facto cultural diversity. Such broadly based irresponsibility of leadership has been named and rejected by the leaders of the emerging populist nationalism, which now arrives to convoke the unity of the nation (with an assimilationist model), having transformed the Republican Party and captured political power in the three branches of government.
Trump’s January 20 Executive Order, “Restoring Names that Honor American Greatness,” affirms the importance of celebrating the history of the nation. It declares: “It is in the national interest to promote the extraordinary heritage of our Nation and ensure future generations of American citizens celebrate the legacy of our American heroes. The naming of our national treasures, including breathtaking natural wonders and historic works of art, should honor the contributions of visionary and patriotic Americans in our Nation’s rich past.” The Order directs the restoring of the name of Mount McKinley, citing the twenty-fifth president’s contributions to U.S. industrialization and economic growth. And the Order directs the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, mentioning the importance of the Gulf, the largest in the world, to American commerce and production, in the past and the present. The Order further calls upon the Secretary of the Interior to seek input concerning additional patriots to honor, in preparation for the nation’s semiquincentennial celebration in 2026.
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Further considerations
The forging of national unity is a challenge that many nations confront, because they often contain two or more ethnic groups. Profound divisions within nations and even civil wars are common. In some cases, established nations have fragmented along ethnic lines. For this reason, the promotion of de facto uncontrolled immigration by the political establishment and their allies, without any attention to the question of how to forge national unity in spite of cultural diversity, stands in opposition to the long-term interests and needs of the nation.
Based in populist nationalism, the MAGA movement has risen to condemn such disregard for the nation by the political establishment and its academic and activist allies. The people of MAGA hope for a renewal of the American Republic, united and prosperous. If the Trump administration can deliver on its promise to control immigration and to reestablish the productivity of the American economy, the MAGA movement will grow in numbers, and possibly will be able to consolidate its paradigm as the framework for the middle decades of the twenty-first century, like the Jefferson-Jacksonian paradigm of the nineteenth century and the FDR New Deal of the middle decades of the twentieth century.
However, the MAGA Movement is not aware that populist nationalism is the core of the anti-colonial revolutions of the Third World, most clearly exemplified by Vietnam and Cuba. The twentieth century anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial revolutions provided the foundation for the worldwide anti-imperialist movement of the twenty-first century, in which China and Cuba are playing leading roles, and which today is constructing, step-by-step, a more just and sustainable world order. The MAGA paradigm needs to evolve to include anti-imperialist consciousness, so that its patriotic nationalism would be complemented by a spirit of internationalism, empowering it to participation with the nations of the Global South and East in the construction of world peace and prosperity.
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