The MAGA Snow-Flakes and the Fragility of Populist Politics
In the the MAGA-land, friends and figures live in lonely and insecure world
In the relatively recent past, especially during the 80s when Soviet Union was still a feared global power alongside the U.S. public policy was a major component of Republican politic. In other words, conservatives after years of radicalism and populist rage during the 60s, understood the importance of having policy and towing a more moderate line in order to be able to appeal to more people and also to compete with the Democratic party in the policy domain. Fervent Anti-Communism of the 1960s and 70s, the conservative elites such as William F. Buckley and Frank S. Meyer found out, could not be fought with populist rage, but only with proper policy programs. In short, Republicans gradually learned to abandon fervent populism in order to survive and thrive in American political landscape during the Cold War. The conservative stopped learning somewhere in early 2016 when Donald Trump managed to capture the Republican Party via his populism and uncommon rhetoric. Trump’s brand of politics also rapidly permeated the ethos of the conservative movement which is essentially manifested in the MAGA agenda that we see today. Populism and MAGA politics come hand-in-hand, as one seemingly cannot live without the other. The Tea Party, in contemporary terms really to the rise of Trumpism, to Theda Scokpol an expert historian of right-wing movements especially the Tea Party.
Does anyone remember the Tea Party of the days of yore before there was a phenomenon called Trumpism? Does anyone remember how CNBC reporter Eric Santelli from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in February 19, 2009 famously freaked out on the Obama administration's proposed ‘Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan’ which was launched as a program to bail out and stabilize the troubled housing market in the aftermath of the massive 2008 financial meltdown and his mad rant of launching a Chicago Tea Party resistance movement against president Obama?Yes, THAT Tea Party and THAT Eric Santelli whose rant of the year eventually launched one of the most powerful populist right-wing movements of the previous decade. Nowadays, we hear that Trumpism is the continuation of the now totally-gone-but-not-missed Tea Party movement of the previous decade-and-a-half by other means. Well I think it is not as simple and clear-cut as that; moreover, although both professed populism and politically incorrect and abhorrent political language, each has its own ‘right’ place in the history of American conservatism, and each pursed its own unique agenda. Although this article does not intend to compare and contrast the Tea Party and Trumpism in a detailed manner, one thing should mentioned that in my opinion highlights a fundamental difference between the two an dpaves the way why the MAGA politics has gained deep roots in America.
The Tea Party was launched in the aftermath of the 2008 presidential election as an organized and well-funded attempt by libertarian “Dark Money” masters, the Koch Brothers and a host of like-minded allies to undermine the political agenda of the Obama administration, as Jane Meyer of the New Yorker magazine in exposed it. After a few bouts of mid-term election victories, , and The Tea Party masters eventually and institutionalized their political agenda for future use. Trumpism, and its MAGA movement on the other hand, is a different beast to say the least. It started as a homegrown populist movement espousing e-friendly narratives and in the process appealed to a lot of untapped and homegrown anger and anxiety. Due to its exclusively populist nature, Trumpism lacks a coherent philosophical worldview and possesses no public policy platform. Nonetheless, it doesn’t mean that it was left to its own device as a populist movemetn without a policy. On the eve of the 2016 election, Trumpism was philosophically aided by an enigmatic and relatively-obscure faction (school?) of the far-right known as the “Westcoast Straussians” whose main outfit the Claremont Institute, the publisher of the respectable outlet Claremont Review of Books based in California, published a widely-read essay by one of its writers Michael Anton entitled “” who essentially encouraged voters to reject Democratic frontrunner Hilary Clinton and instead cast their votes for the inexperienced but anti-establishment celebrity billionaire from Queens, Donald Trump.
The entry of Steve K. Bannon, the co-founder of the Alt-Right platform Breitbart into the the MAGA-land made it appear as though the newly-elected Trump administration is being run by ‘a man with a plan’. When Trumpism was supplemented by a dose of Steve Bannon’s own handcrafted blend of , it seemed as though policy was a . The infamous Executive Order 13769, infamously known as “the Muslim Ban” by the mainstream media was the signature policy that by Steve Bannon’s ideology. The due seemed almost like a perfect match, one populist the other, philosopher. While Trump during the early days and weeks of his administration was busy tussling with journalists and posing in front of cable TV espousing populism and demagoguery, Bannon, the man of the Alt-Right inside the White House seemed more preoccupied with raising his own profile by appearing in CPAC forum and trying to portray himself as a philosopher of MAGA-land, ”. Except in the MAGA-land, as we have seen time and again, there is room for only one person, namely Donald Trump and the rest are his loyal foot soldiers who are there only to promote the boss and praise the administration. There is zero room for self-promoting subordinates, plain and simple. This is the “ unwitten law” in the MAGA-land. In Aug 17th, 2017 Bannon unaware of the law of the MAGA-land and self-possessed by a number of domestic and foreign policy ‘moves’ which he took credit for, again stepping out of his line in relation to the standing of the boss and his administration, and lashed out at those White House cabinet members whom he believed were undermining the Donald Trump (translation: HIS OWN) agenda. He was fired with disgrace and his plans of deconstructing the administrative state never materialized. A number of Trump’s former friends even lobbed at Bannon for trying to undermine the boss, adding injury to insult.
Trumpism’s borrowed intellectualism, lasted until Aug 2017 when the Alt-right launched the infamous Charlottesville rally and in the process that had been provided to it. Since then, MAGA was left with only populism and no ideological foundation…not even a one. Think of Trumpism from 2017 onward as a big, loud, ‘body’ without a head. Since this ‘body’, or for the sake of simplification, ‘base’ doesn’t have a thinking part but only a ‘moving’ part, in order to survive (and thrive) it needs to accumulate mass. In other words, it needs ‘the masses’ to soldier on and maintain power. As philosopher Hannah Arendt explains, demagogues feed off crowds of masses who are unstable, irrational and impulsive and therefore it is imperative of Trumpism to be one with tis base and vice versa. The Since the mindless ‘base’ doesn’t think, but can only move, it relies on its ‘urges’ rather than mental faculties to enrich itself.Trump’s firing of his cabinet ranging from chief of staff to national security advisor all point to one truth, that is the MAGA-land is a very fragile and insecure world. In the MAGA-land friends and figures walk on a razor-sharp rope and are perpetually anxious about what to do, what to say and how to act, in order not to break the unwritten law. Almost all of Trump’s firings follow this pattern: those who got the pink slip stepped out of line and either got too full of themselves or expressed their frustration with the boss. John Kelly got frustrated with Trump got fired. Jim Mattis got frustrated with Trump’s sudden announcement of U.S. forces withdrawal from Syria (which didn't happen!) left the administration. Rex Tillerson got frustrated by Trump and called him “a moron”, got fired. John Bolton, the ultra-hawkish foreign policy figure and his third National Security Advisor called him an idiot and clashed with him over policy, and got both . Mike Pence, his Vice President for four years the certification of Joe Biden’s win at the direction the former president on Jan. 6th 2021 and is now an avowed enemy of Trump and a .
The MAGA-land is a lonely and fragile world. Everybody is constantly looking over his/her shoulder because they know the political life expectency at MAGA-land is very low.