MAGA beliefs don’t align with historic conservatism
Anyone who believes the current phenomena of MAGA, Project 2025, and Donald Trump’s extreme belligerence are in any way rooted in familiar American political conservatism need only consider the current occupation of the American city of Minneapolis by federal ICE personnel to burst that naive bubble.
The long-revered mantra of conservatism in American political history was to “keep the federal government from intruding in the lives of the people.” Additionally, to respect and solicit the sovereignty and input of duly elected local, municipal, and state leadership. Within that conservative view, the primacy of local and state autonomy was, at very least, considered along with the heavier hand of federal government.
Now, in Minneapolis and other cities the federal hand is oppressively heavy and exclusionary. In the aftermath of the killing of an American citizen by ICE personnel, local and state law enforcement has been excluded by centralized federal authority from participating in any investigation-an investigation which now does not even seem likely to happen-into the tragic death.
The emergence of MAGA is quite different from historic conservatism. It is something darker and far less American. It is difficult for we Americans, blessedly accustomed to freedom, to envision its ultimate imprint on our future.
Ben Moyer
Farmington