Listen to “Friday Night’s MAGA Funeral” on Spreaker.
The funeral was late Friday evening.
There was concern it wouldn’t happen. A birthday party drop-off for child one, a post-dinner ice cream run with child three, and just life getting in the way.
But mourning the death of MAGA in America — for me — finally took place around 11 p.m. in my home office resulting in this piece.
Killed by the “Blue Tsunami,” MAGA may not be missed – not by me anyway. But even the demise of something disliked deserves critical thought.
Don’t misunderstand. The far liberal left isn’t particularly appealing either, especially when its policies are examined one by one. The fringes don’t lead to the sweet spot.
But with MAGA suffering a potentially fatal electoral blow, there’s hope that real conservative thought — rooted in the ideals of classical liberalism — might find its way back into American politics.
What is classical liberalism?
At its core, classical liberalism emphasizes individual rights, free markets, private property, constitutional limits on government and the rule of law. All good things by my reckoning.
Stated minus disdain, it’s surely not modern liberal-left thinking – far from it. Study it for yourself; start with Ron Swanson (IYKYK) or John Locke.
My estimation is that classical liberalism is best described as principles over party and liberty over loyalty.
MAGA apologists have a difficult time abiding that kind of thinking.
Less government. Limited government. Not selectively limited government — where government power is bad until it’s used to advance your particular political or cultural agenda.
More freedom. More personal responsibility. An ideology that values liberty regardless of whether the political left or right happens to be in power.
The idea is simple: Government should protect your rights, not run your life.
MAGA-style populist conservatism, by contrast, places greater emphasis on cultural traditions, nationalism and the use of government power to achieve particular economic or cultural objectives.
That’s not classical liberalism. And it bears little resemblance to the limited-government conservatism Republicans once claimed to champion.
Let’s make it practical to see…
Chief among MAGA’s wrongs? Tariffs.
President Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on imported goods, including broadly applicable duties and country-specific tariffs. MAGA gave him the political power to make it so.
From a classical liberal perspective, the objections are profound. Tariffs interfere with voluntary exchange between buyers and sellers. They raise costs for consumers and businesses. They put government in the position of picking economic winners and losers.
And Trump sought to exercise sweeping taxing authority through emergency powers rather than ordinary congressional legislation – all in the face of practical economic theory and history that said it doesn’t work.
When did it become conservative to support taxation by presidential decree?
More bluntly, when did it become conservative for the federal government to own pieces of American businesses?
The Trump administration, bolstered again by MAGA, brought government further into the boardroom.
The federal government acquired an ownership stake in Intel, secured extraordinary veto rights involving U.S. Steel and obtained financial interests in companies such as Vulcan Elements. One recent accounting identified more than 40 companies with some form of federal equity-related arrangement.
This is an extraordinary departure from free-market conservatism and capitalism. It’s more like state capitalism with a populist bent mixed in — government acting not merely as regulator, but as investor, shareholder and corporate power broker. All bad.
Where’s the outrage from conservatives?
Where are the calls for limited government?
Or do those principles only matter when Democrats occupy the White House?
Disregard for due process. An ongoing war with no clear end. A growing national debt and another deficit on the way. A troubling lack of personal morality in the Oval Office.
This is the legacy of MAGA.
And those who spent years preaching limited government, fiscal responsibility, constitutional restraint and personal character should be asking themselves how they came to defend so much of what they once opposed.
We should be glad MAGA suffered such a crushing defeat.
We should hope MAGA 2.0 never materializes — that hope probably requires a hope that J.D. Vance fades away to something else, somewhere else. And we should hope that genuine conservative thought — based on principle rather than personality — finds its way back into conservative politics.
The Republican Party doesn’t need another personality cult. It needs a philosophical foundation that is tried and true.
One that respects free markets, limits government, protects individual liberty and demands accountability regardless of who holds power.
Principles over party. Liberty over loyalty.
That’s conservatism worth resurrecting.
Time will tell whether that hope becomes reality or another missed opportunity.