1 Introducing the MAGA New Right

Field points to three groups on the MAGA New Right including the Claremonters, the Postliberals and the National Conservatives.  As Field (2025, p. .5) characterizes it:  “… the Claremonters idolize the American founding, the Postliberals a particular (religiously inspired) conception of the “Common Good” and the National Conservatives the myth of a traditional American nation.” And, there is a bit of overlap among the groups, leading to a home to “…not only to intellectuals, but also to activists, influencers, staffers, and politicians.”  As Field (2025, p. 3) says it, the story weaved in the book, using lots of empirical observation, helps the reader understand the “… ideological radicalization (coalescing across the three groups all represented in the MAGA New Right) —the mutually reinforcing radicalization of intellectuals, politicians, and the movement they led” that occurred in the main during the period 2016-2024, and continues on through the present time.

Framing the Debate

What is it all about, on large frame? Well, as Field (2025 p. 3) clarifies it was and still is about the effort to “…leverage real problems, as well as known vulnerabilities of liberalism, to impose their own homogenizing moral and political vision on the rest of the country … wanted to turn back the clock on pluralistic liberal democracy, and even on modernity itself. Many were also articulating new visions for the future: new laws, schemas for education, modes of constitutionalism, traditionalist communities, and technological utopias.”  Using DIT framing here, the homogenizing would be done through the authoritarian framed Project 1500 (oops, I keep making that typo, 2025), with “the Don” a useful, bully-styled personality (with extreme narcissistic tendencies) to be in play as the plan is implemented. 

Hanson and Kopstein (2024) uses a slightly different frame to make sense of what is going on, which includes the efforts by the MAGA New Right, pointing to how said plan represents the joint effort of the unholy alliance of Extreme Libertarians determined to build a utopian techno system to replace democracy, a kind of Market Fundamentalism imposed by a techno person at the top; the Christian Nationalists wanting to reintegrate church and state, based in Religious Fundamentalism, imposed by authoritarianism bordering on neofascist framing; and the effort to build a vertical power system as justified by a pseudo (cargo-cult) -science based Unitary Executive Power theory way of thinking (See the Review of Hanson and Kopstein 2024).  Overall, just like with the MAGA New Right, it is about building an Authoritarian Nationalism styled system with heavy reliance on a vertical power rule of law, based in Market and Religious Fundamentalism, even using dual law --- law for “us” and law for “them” which is common in such systems.  

DIT Integration

An integration across the six characterizations (three from Field and three from Hanson and Kopstein) will be done here using DIT.  All six give somewhat different but overlapping content to the shared other-interest represented in the MAGA New Right.  The integration uses the DIT analytical system represented in Figure 1 and Figure 2, with special attention to the specific content of the path 0M holding the shared other-interest favored by the MAGA New Right.  In DIT, path 0M always represents the political ideology and other forms of shared interest in play, so, the focus here is on the content of the shared interest on said path.

MAGA New Right Became Prominent During 2016-2024

Even though the core elements of what is now the MAGA Right have been around for decades --- so, not really a New Right  --- it took the emergence of “the Don” to inspire said elements to once again express that favored frame.  MAGA started supporting a presidential candidate that showed little respect for the Constitution --- the old mainstay especially of the Originalists --- while are now looking the other way as “the Don” brought “hate, resentment, and fear (into everyday discourse, and former) … defenders of ‘family values,’ high culture, and Christianity were suddenly lining up behind an adulterer, purported rapist, and obvious misogynist who was also an anti-intellectual and failed capitalist with a record of six bankrupted businesses … (and) stood for a protectionist style of economics—the opposite of the laissez-faire approach that had long been the mainstay of the American right (Field 2025, pp. 1-2).” Yes, indeed, and all of it was well underway in 2016, going even further away from traditional, reasoned Conservatism by 2024, and continues in a flood the zone approach to take it all down here in 2025.

And while Field (2025) does not frame it in said way, it is clear the use of the Soviet styled Big Lie Political Technology starting with the claim of 2020 Election Stolen was in play during the 2024 Election campaign.  The 2024 election campaign was powered by a total disregard for truth for purpose, that purpose being to take power to impose the content of the shared other-interest favored by the MAGA New Right. It also had a vertical power, strict father, authoritarian frame of reference to it.

Field (2025, p. 2) does point to the claim of 2020 Stolen Election, which had no basis in truth and fact, and then also many if not all in the New (MAGA) Right ignoring the “implications of January 6, 2021, right-wing thought leaders were talking about ending liberal democracy and installing a ‘Red Caesar’ … (also) calling themselves Postliberals and publishing books with titles like Regime Change.”   Project 2025 (as I often reframe it, Project 1500) was developed and  further refined during that 2016-2024 period, with the intent of implementing the plan as quickly as possible starting even with many Executive Orders even issued on inauguration day,  January 20, 2025, in a flood the zone strategy.   

The New Right has many intellectuals as well as the expected political activists.  Field explores the ideas from said individuals, as well as the more ordinary people now part of the MAGA New  Right.  Field weaves the story of political radicalization now represented in the MAGA New Right.

As Field (2025, p. 4) frames it, “ The New Right views mainstream liberal America—the “woke” America that embraces plurality and equality, including across various formerly marginalized identities—as an all-encompassing, monolithic “regime” of elite oppression (which they often also refer to as the “enemy”). Culture warriorism—which we might define as an excessive emphasis on rhetoric and media performance over policy formulation and real- world political negotiation—plays a major role on the New Right because at bottom this is a movement driven by reactionary social values and principles, not specific policy concerns.”  Yes, it is.  So, what are the major themes?  Well, again, Field claims three groups as represented in the Claremonters, the  Postliberals and the National Conservatives.  Hanson and Kopstein point to three groups represented in the Christian Nationalists, the Unitary Executive Power Theory frame, and, even the (Extreme) Libertarians are all in.  Field then gives a quick look into each group, with full chapters devoted later in the book to each.

Claremonters

Said group  is closely associated with the California based think tank known as the Claremont Institute and Hillsdale College in Michigan.  Many in said places are what Field characterizes as West Coast Straussians, in the spirit of  political philosopher Leo Straus and student Harry V. Jaffa.  It is about going back to first principles of the Founding of the US, akin to Originalism in law, called Declarationism. Some of the Claremonters overlap with Christian Nationalism, which reflets the lacking in truth claim that the Founders formed a Christian Nation. JD Vance has been found to associate and identify with said group.

Postliberals

To help understand Field on the matter of post-liberalism, it needs to be understood that the US Founders had in mind a form of classical liberalism coming out of the Enlightenment, and represented in economics by Adam Smith.  To Smith, the ethic (moral sentiments) played a key role in affecting the incentives to create and make (and also not keep all) wealth:  The Postliberals claim the Adam Smith type frame has failed. 

Post-liberalism sees the failure, using DIT framing, as too much emphasis on the Incentive of path 0G in Figure 1, and not enough emphasis on the moral and ethical represented on path 0M.  And, in particular as presented in Patrick Deneen of Notre Dame (see the Review of Why (Classical) Liberalism Failed here), and VP JD Vance as admirer, it reflects the desire to bring a Catholic theology-based path 0M into play, even imposed on others using authoritarian ways if necessary.  Evangelical Christianity running on Religious Fundamentalism also comes into play in the post-liberalism way of thinking.

Making sense of such claims using DIT, Enlightenment based classical liberalism as framed in economy by Adam Smith in the 1700s (actually it started taking hold especially after about 1648 in what would become Western Democracies ) was about operating on path 0Z, with the ethic (moral sentiment) tempering the excesses of self-interest only incentive.  And, it was an inclusive frame of reference, as in We the People would evolve onto some best, ever evolving path 0Z, including an evolving empathy-based Constitution.  And, sure, perhaps religion would play some role in giving content to the ethic, but it was not the only source of the moral and ethical dimension essential to a viable economy. Deneen and JD Vance seem to espouse imposing some Catholic-based moral and ethical order as the content of the other (shared)-interest on the economy, in effect defining path 0Z on Catholic terms.  

National Conservatives

Field claims the National Conservatives provide a kind of umbrella frame for all the groups represented in the New Right.  Nationalism is a major frame as represented in Hazony (2018, 2025; see Review).  Again, using Hanson and Kopstein (2024), said group represents the alliance of the libertarians (techno types, but also the near anarchists), the Christian Nationalists, and the Unitary Executive Power drive to in effect neutralize the Constitution --- the horizontal rule of law with equal and countervailing power as among the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches put into place by the Founders. The MAGA New Right, and the unholy alliance of Libertarians, Christian Nationalists and Unitary Power framers seemingly wants to replace the horizontal rule of law of the Constitutional Democracy with a kind of vertical power rule of men in a reintegrated church & state under an Authoritarian Nationalism.

Hard Right

Field (2025, p. 8) also claims a kind of “underbelly” to the various groups, referred to as the Hard Right.  Said people tend to be “more hard-line, racist, misogynistic, and violent in their rhetoric. The aesthetic here is hypermasculinist, desperate, and ruthless; several figures … are open racists and fascists… (who) push the movement ever further to the extremes.”

Historical Perspective

Field notes the many New Right frames and shifts, while focusing attention on the MAGA New Right. Also, Field makes clear that some things in the MAGA New Right are now new, just reemerging and reinforced in various newer forms, with all moving away from the Progressive President Theodore Roosevelt and President Eisenhower kind of conservatism.

To frame the history, Field (2025, p. 10) points out that “American conservatism, at its ideological core, tends to be isolationist, socially traditionalist, and devoted to small government … the ‘Old Right’ … (said conservatives never wanted to support) the New Deal.”  But, extreme elements were also in play, as in Barry Goldwater, Newt Gringrich and the Tea Party … eventually “… cycled further into (even more) extremism—from Red Caesarism and ‘regime change’ to Catholic integralism and Christian nationalism (p. 11).”

 The later shift turned extreme Right on social and cultural issues, and ironically moved toward some elements of populism on the Left for economic issues.

And, don’t forget the John Birchers, who are back in full-view:  “In 1964 the Goldwater Republicans refused to admonish extremists like the Birchers and the Ku Klux Klan in the party, and Goldwater won the primary—an obvious victory for the Birchers and Klansmen. But he lost the election, badly. And when Reagan ran for governor of California in 1965, he began openly denouncing the Birchers. Buckley did too, issuing a special report in the October 1965 issue of the National Review that was critical of them. Over the course of the coming decades, Buckley would keep Birchers from having bylines at the National Review (Field 2025, p. 13).”  Field claims the Birchers never went away, but merely went underground and festered as “Paleoconservatives.” The MAGA New Right has brought the Birchers under the new  umbrella, which includes (Field 2025, p. 14):  “… social conservativism (Reno’s strong gods), economic nationalism, isolationist foreign policy, and anti-immigration (Anton’s trifecta).”

Field (2025, pp. 14-15) uses the words of the libertarian thinker Murray Rothbard (as newly recollected by John Ganz), that the MAGA New Right is “to ‘break the clock’ and ‘repeal the twentieth century,’ or perhaps to take us back to before the Civil Rights Act, or to the founding era, or even the Middle Ages.”  Yes, indeed: Project 1500 (not 2025) it is, as in back to the future. Ironically, it is often bright, young, tech savvy people driving it, who are often also mesogenic, as in masculinity put front and center. The frame also tends to be anti-elitism and anti-pluralism, somehow seeing an imagined “real (masculine men) people” who are to be in charge. Ironically, many are elite and are in play because of pluralism, but, then, that is the way with the “us” vs “them” frame, with said “us”  evermore “… openly minoritarian and antidemocratic in its theoretical principles (Field 2025, p. 16).” 

Incoherence characterizes the MAGA New Right. But, as Field (2025, p. 16) points out, “the political theorist Matthew McManus—who has also written extensively about the New Right—explains, ‘Being unable to live with ideological contradictions has never been a major weakness of the hard right.’”  Hypocrisy also comes to mind, especially with the wealthy elite in the MAGA New Right assaulting elitism.

Unfortunately, the MAGA New Right is also quite Authoritarian, as in favoring Authoritarian Nationalism in a vertical power rule of men system, with the loyalists and the strong man  at the top:  “The list of such figures is long: Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Marine Le Pen in France, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Narendra Modi in India, Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, Giorgia Meloni in Italy, and, of course, Vladimir Putin in Russia have all fueled the international turn to chauvinistic nationalism. It is a response to a sense of growing international instability and insecurity that is not unique to any one place, and, increasingly, these groups learn from one another and collaborate.

The MAGA New Right often imitates Orbán, who has called his approach ‘illiberal democracy’ or ‘Christian liberty,’ and which involves using majority democratic support to install an authoritarian regime.”  The first strong indicator that such a system is the preferred structure was on January 6, 2021, which was promulgated by the use of Big Lie Political Technology.  Such political technology is used regularly by Authoritarians to take and keep power, starting with the outrageous claim of the 2020 Election Stolen.

Who is Field?

Field has formal training with  both BA and MA degrees in political science, and a PhD in political theory and public law, with substantive backgrounding in Straussian Political Philosophy. Said philosophy sees the Founding as some kind of moral and imperative, American exceptionalism put in place, reflecting natural law.  Field also makes clear, that even though a student of Straussian framing, that being a Conservative was never the frame, and points to many Progressive frames and ideas that hold more promise. 

Yet, the book is recognizing that many thoughtful conservatives, researchers and academics included, have given credence to the New Right.  Field quotes Rosen (2022;  ??See Review) here:    “What the writer Matthew Rose says about the radical right is true of the New Right, too: Almost everything written about the ‘alternative right’ has been wrong in one respect. The alt-right is not stupid; it is deep. Its ideas are not ridiculous; they are serious. To appreciate this fact, one needs to inquire beyond its presence on social media, where its obnoxious use of insult, obscenity, and racism has earned it a reputation for moral idiocy. The reputation is deserved, but do not be deceived. Behind its online tantrums and personal attacks are arguments of seductive power.” 

Most importantly to answering the question:  It is clear that Field is using serious and systematic inquiry in science and humanities, i.e., Field is empirical to the core.  The search is for the empirical content of the claims being made by the New Right.  No matter Field’s personal, preferred spot on the political spectrum, the attention to the empirical is notable.

As Field (2025 p. 25) says, such an effort is important, as to “… believe that there is nothing to learn from these thinkers and no compelling noneconomic reasons to support something like Trumpism—is naive and dangerous … (as the New right) reflects some of the actual failures of modern liberal politics and economics, of modern liberal culture, and of the corporate neoliberal academy. One of the major advantages of spending time with the New Right is that it allows us to see these challenges more clearly, and to think through future possibilities for a pluralistic liberal order more deeply. And with some urgency.”  

So, here we go.  Think and Learn. Choose your next Chapter in the main Blog menu.