The Conservative Revolt Behind the MAGA Movement
Originally published in 3Streams on January 15, 2025.
The foment that has occurred around Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing is yet another dramatic display of the disruption Trump’s bizarre cabinet choices are producing. At first, his unorthodox picks were readily dismissed. Even Karl Rove described Trump’s appointments as a ‘clown’ show and a ‘confirmation circus.’ Although it has been recognized that Trump is choosing loyalists to surround him, and therefore his choices are more strategic than that characterization might suggest, we are still missing what is most sinister at the heart of it all.
What we have missed is that the MAGA movement is nothing short of conservative revolution — an organized revolt against the established order led by highly educated elites. And, as with all revolutions, this rebellion has at its core a revolutionary ideology: Paleoconservatism.