What is MAGA?

In short, it isn't conservative, populist or even Republican. It has elements of all of those, but at its root, it is simply an anti-progressivism movement.

Murph is a Good Boy

MAGA is not really a populist movement, at least in the traditional concept of populism. It does share many of the same characteristics as populism but still seems different to me.

I think the easiest way to understand both the division – and strength - within MAGA is this: it is not conservative, moderate, or even Republican, what it is, is anti-progressive. It has united people from across the political spectrum, most of whom agree on only one thing – that the collectivist progressivism that has coalesced within the modern Democrat Party is anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-reason, anti-science, and is destructive to prosperity and a positive future.

Because MAGA is a movement of common sense for common people, the Democrats routinely characterize MAGA supporters as ignorant, stupid, and uneducated. Democrats see themselves as elites who look to “intellectuals” to provide the “authority” upon which their infinite appeals to authority (a logical fallacy) depend.

I love my runs and walks with Murph. Murph is action oriented and not much of a conversationalist, so I have alone time with my thoughts. This morning, as I considered this, I began to think about how “intellectuals” are defined these days and I realized there are a couple of ways to describe the basis for being anointed as a “thinker” – the first is actual scholarship, the second is based in ideology.

In the scholarship group, I place people like Thomas Sowell, Jordan Peterson, Milton Friedman, Rush Limbaugh, Gad Saad, and Victor Davis Hanson. Of course, there are many more, but these men are models of true intellectuals because they can combine common sense and personal experience with a deep practical knowledge of their areas of subject matter. They can speak to people outside academia with a clarity that renders any concept understandable. They tend to be plain spoken and to use examples that create images that everyone, regardless of educational status, can visualize and understand – sort of the way the people who founded this nation spoke.

On the other hand, those who are recognized as “intellectuals” on the left are anointed based on their credentials and ideology. If they went to the right schools, supported the right ideas, and voted for the right people, they are considered intellectual even if they completely lack common sense and any relationship with reality. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame calls them “credentialled, not educated.” Dan Bongino used to refer to them as “stupid smart people.” They tend to speak and write in a sort of code, one generally incomprehensible to the common person (you should try to read some of the “academic” papers they put out), but a language designed to signal membership within the political left. Their idea of intellectualism is that what they know is so complex and nuanced that they can’t explain it to you because you wouldn’t understand – so they don’t bother – but the real reason is that, at some level, they suspect they cannot defend their positions using the logic necessary to support a valid premise. They seem to know most of what they consider absolutes cannot withstand review using their own rules and standards.

In a substantive way, it is what makes MAGA so powerful, successful, and feared on the left. Saul Alinsky knew that making your enemy live up to their rules is a remarkably effective tactic when the rules of your enemy are illogical constructs lacking any foundation in reason or reality. It is the fastest way to expose charlatans and frauds.

I know this is sort of apropos of nothing early on a Sunday morning, but since Murph is the strong, silent type, I had no other way to get these ideas out of my head.

Now it is in your noggin.

You’re welcome.