Donald Trump has started his second presidency with a bang, issuing hard-hitting policies faster than any president in history. But what’s even more impressive is that Trump has shattered the long-running competition between conservatism and liberalism in public life. He has given America a new approach to governing, one that’s fundamentally different from anything that came before.
Until Trump, politics was divided for decades between two opposing camps, in more ways than one. That starts with conservatism. Since its establishment in the 1950s, the conservative movement has been a largely intellectual project, focusing on the impact of big ideas on society. While those ideas were true, conservatism paid insufficient attention to enacting them in real life — i.e., what does it practically mean to “renew civil society”? Even as conservatism has split between the “freedom” and “national” camps in recent years, the focus on philosophy has stayed the same. Think of the national conservative focus on “sovereignty,” for instance.
By contrast, liberalism has rejected philosophy in favor of something more practical: power. Whether it goes by the name of progressivism, socialism, or communism, the liberal project has long been about seizing control over society and then reshaping it to serve elitist whims. Where liberalism pretends to have some ideological moorings — think of its recent embrace of “critical race theory” — it has always favored power-grabbing policies over impractical philosophy. See the buying of votes with endless welfare expansions and the pitting of people against each other by race and gender.
Then came Trump. While at first it wasn’t clear which of these governing approaches he held, over the past eight years, the president has provided an unmistakable answer: neither. On the one hand, he advocates a slew of conservative philosophical priorities — empowering parents, protecting the nation, upholding equality and liberty for all. On the other hand, his approach is radically practical, not unlike that of liberals. He has no qualms about using the massive power of the federal government to make real-world progress toward philosophical goals.
This isn’t just MAGA, but rather, it’s MAGAism, an ideology that directly competes with conservatism and liberalism. It’s not the caricature of the Left, which holds that this worldview is nothing more than racism, sexism, colonialism, and so on. Nor is it the caricature of the intellectual Right, which despises Trump and his followers for their impure adherence to conservative ideals. In fact, MAGAism holds that such impurity is essential to moving toward those ideals. Put another way, if we’re going to realize conservative principles, we have to act in seemingly unconservative ways.
This reality is clear in virtually everything Trump does. When it comes to foreign policy, he refuses to let the conservative ideal, a peaceful world of free and prosperous nations, cloud the reality that our NATO allies are taking advantage of us. He’s willing to threaten NATO’s continued existence to force a long-overdue change in defense spending and national strength.
Similarly, on trade, Trump has publicly proclaimed the conservative principle of zero tariffs. But practically, he slaps tariffs on any country that engages in unfair trade practices, with the ultimate goal of forcing it to change. That’s another example of using a liberal approach to pursue a conservative end.
You can even see the difference of MAGAism in the political allies Trump has chosen. He has aligned with leftist labor union bosses, which no conservative would ever do. But amazingly, that has enabled him to build a working-class coalition that supports conservative ideas such as tax cuts and deregulation.
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Over and over, Trump is breaking the conservative vs. liberal status quo, with a new approach that combines the defining elements of both. Some may find it tempting to view MAGAism as an offshoot of conservatism, given its close connection to the Republican Party and historically conservative activists and organizations. But Trump is doing things conservatism never even considered while putting liberalism on the defense in unprecedented ways.
Trump won’t be around forever, but by bringing MAGAism into the mainstream, he has surely brought permanent disruption to American culture and public life.
John Tillman is president of the American Culture Foundation.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
