MAGA doesn't build anything

I think it’s pretty uncontroversial to say that the MAGA movement is the most powerful and important political movement in America today, by a wide margin. Trump’s control of the presidency, and his unprecedented domination of the Republican Party, mean that even though MAGA isn’t a majority of Americans, it has complete control over the federal government. That control will diminish, but not disappear, if Democrats take back one or both houses of Congress next fall. In the meantime, despite falling popularity, MAGA reigns supreme.

And yet I can’t help thinking that despite its current dominance, the MAGA movement doesn’t have much of a long-term future. It has managed to win some elections, by harnessing popular rage — against Democrats, against immigration, against educated elites, against economic conditions, etc. But rage doesn’t last forever. In order for a movement to have longevity, I think it needs to build something. Things like physical infrastructure, institutions, and culture have a lifetime that long exceeds the cascade of emotions that first brings a movement into being.

Successful political movements in America have always been, at least in part, constructive movements. The New Deal built vast infrastructure, government agencies, social insurance programs, regulatory regimes, and much more. The conservative movement of the late 20th century gave rise to modern American business culture, a Christian revival, a military whose power was unrivaled for a generation, and organizations like the Federalist Society. Even the New Left movement of the 1960s and 70s ended up leaving its mark on America by taking over university departments and creating a bunch of NGOs.

Trump’s administration is certainly fond of the symbolism of building a new America. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security recently posted the famous 1872 painting American Progress, depicting pioneers going to settle the West:

And yet in terms of the actual on-the-ground reality, I don’t see MAGA doing much pioneering. Instead, I see a fundamentally deconstructive movement — a furious assault on progressive culture, liberal institutions, and the structure of the U.S. economy in general, with no idea of what should replace it. On culture, factories, infrastructure, energy, technology, and institutions, MAGA is tearing things down without building things up.

MAGA isn’t building a new American culture

Let’s talk about culture, first, because I’ve already written a bit about that. When I was a kid in the 1990s, conservative culture was blossoming. Evangelical Christianity was the tentpole of that culture, of course, and there was an efflorescence of religious revival — megachurches, Christian TV stations, Christian rock, and so on. But it blended with other conservative cultural elements as well — patriotism, respect for the military, country music, etc.

I remember an event at my high school called See You at the Pole, where teenagers would go pray around the American flag. Although some of my liberal friends looked askance at this gathering, I admired its constructiveness and positivity. I certainly have much to criticize about late 20th century conservatism, but it was a grassroots outpouring of enthusiasm and devotion that built new traditions, communities, and group activities all over America.

Contrast that with Donald Trump’s right-wing movement over the past ten years. In a post back in March, I pointed out that there was no nationwide grassroots cultural movement associated with MAGA:

Trump’s movement has been around for a decade now, and in all that time it has built absolutely nothing. There is no Trump Youth League. There are no Trump community centers or neighborhood Trump associations or Trump business clubs…Christian affiliation and church attendance remain well below their levels at the turn of the century. Republicans still have more children than Democrats, but births in red states have fallen too.

In Trump’s first term, the attempts at organized civic participation on the Right were almost laughably paltry. A few hundred Proud Boys got together and went to brawl with antifa in the streets of Berkeley and Portland. There were a handful of smallish right-wing anti-lockdown protests in 2020. About two thousand people rioted on January 6th — mostly people in their 40s and 50s. And none of these ever crystallized into long-term grassroots organizations of the type that were the norm in the 1950s…And in Trump’s second term so far? Nothing. Even the rally numbers are way down…

The MAGA movement, you see, is an internet thing. It’s another vertical online community — a bunch of deracinated, atomized individuals, thinly connected across vast distances by the notional bonds of ideology and identity. There is nothing in it of family, community, or rootedness to a place. It’s a digital consumption good. It’s a subreddit. It is a fandom.

Say what you will about the woke movement, but it built plenty of culture. It created NGOs, protest movements, and campus groups. It created new quasi-religious rituals in the form of land acknowledgements and other customs. I was never particularly into that culture, or eager to join those groups, but they did represent a fairly cohesive cultural program for what a future America would look like.

The MAGA folks have focused a lot of energy on rooting out woke culture at universities and government agencies. But what will they put in its place? If woke dies, what comes next for America? Trump’s movement doesn’t seem to have an answer. ...