MAGA, Trump, and the vision thing

Progressives believe in “progress,” which, in practice, means extending the “arc of history”—the general tendency of thought and social organization—toward a windowless global technocracy that manages the whole of life.

Many people—including Catholics who merge love of God into a secular version of love of man—understand human goods and the world in a way that makes support for that tendency obligatory. They believe justice and inclusiveness require applying similar standards to everything and ensuring conformity to them. And they believe the way to combine compassion and rationality is to provide for all human concerns through comprehensive organization.

Their highest standards require policies that—whether they recognize it or not—end in global technocracy. To become responsible for the well-being of particular individuals, government must take control of human life. Progressivism sets no limit to that process.

Others reject that tendency because man cannot be regimented without degrading him. Also, human nature is real, and man is an embodied, sexed, cultural, and religious being. Progressives don’t want those qualities to matter in social life. They are messy, and interfere with technological rationality, so they violate their understanding of the good society. To allow them any effect would be cooperation with sexism, racism, homophobia, theocracy, and so on. Hence the progressive view that their opponents, who at best downplay such issues, are simply evil.

Conservatism is less well defined than progressivism, so it’s not surprising that the Republicans, who are our conservative party, have not had a coherent response. They have trouble with what the first President Bush called “the vision thing.” So, for the most part, they’ve accepted progressive standards and language, since these dominate the world around them, and have emphasized realism, good management, and “moderation,” meaning slowed-down progressivism. (How often they actually provide those things is, of course, a different question.)

They have also joined the Democrats in supporting Western liberal triumphalism, the view that the rest of the world must remake itself on Western liberal lines, although the usual Republican version of that has placed greater emphasis on American will and power. And they’ve gained votes by gestures toward the social conservatism of many of their followers, although party leaders have privately looked down on them and their concerns.

These followers have responded to their contempt and lack of vision by complaining about RINOs (“Republicans in name only”), and ultimately by supporting Donald Trump. And Trump does present a vision of sorts: MAGA.

It has never been clear just what an America made great again would look like. Reagan talked about “a shining city on the hill, George H. W. Bush about “a thousand points of light.” MAGA has no such luminous ideals. And it has abandoned basic aspects of social conservatism, a trend variously symbolized by support for IVF, quiet acceptance of “gay marriage,” and making an insult comedian the warmup act for the showcase rally of their 2024 campaign.

At a practical level, Trump is mostly a businessman who likes to bluster and then make advantageous deals. That has some advantages compared with progressivism. He delivered the non-progressive Supreme Court he promised. While he is unrestrained in his words, the wilder comments attributed to him have reliably been falsifications. And, in spite of undiplomatic talk, he was the first president in some time to avoid new wars. If you like to make deals, you do not like wars.

He also has a patriotism that seems real but has something of the football fan feel about it: “We’re number one, win team win!” But “winning” seems to include things that benefit the American people, so even that sort of patriotism seems better than no patriotism at all—a basic problem with progressivism, whose technocratic universalism has no place for particular loyalties.

MAGA is crude and boisterous—but not insane. And successful businessmen usually have an interest in practical realities, so there are grounds for hope that MAGA will promote rather than injure the common good, especially when compared to progressivism, which has lost touch with reality.

At the policy level MAGA seems mostly to mean border controls, less emphasis on global empire and more on specific national interests, economic growth through trade policy and reduced regulation, reversing the gross politicization of the legal system and government agencies, and rejection of wokery and the progressive contempt for ordinary people and ways of thought. These goals seem worthwhile, depending on how they are carried out.

Unlike progressivism, MAGA has no interest in crushing traditional religion and social conservatism. But it has little interest in their concerns, and a weak understanding of the common good. Dealmaking can be useful, but overall strategy requires wisdom, and few call Donald Trump wise. And who knows what deals he may find advantageous or what may be sacrificed to them?

No matter how superior a second Trump administration may be to the alternative, Catholics will find things to oppose in it. But we will see.

However, what to do about the lack of vision which, after all, is the great problem in America today? Many of Trump’s cabinet picks seem more suited to disruption—which does seem needed—than solid or creative leadership.

MAGA supporters hope the movement brings about a fundamental change in direction, and many people sense a new trend toward more natural ways of thought. But such things, if real, are in their earliest stages. More is needed than disruption or even a return to normalcy: you cannot fight a definite vision like progressivism without one of your own.

American conservatives have often appealed to the “vision of the Founders.” That vision accepted the liberal goals of freedom and equality, but also accepted moral tradition, a generic God, and the personal and social discipline required by limited and devolved government as limitations on what those goals meant.

That vision dissipated when the limitations it depended on were no longer accepted. Could it be restored, perhaps through disenchantment with progressivism and the search for an alternative rooted in American history, along with the religiosity and social conservatism of some of the groups constituting the Democratic coalition? The future is unforeseeable, but it seems unlikely. The vision was based on an unspoken consensus that seems impossible to restore in a more contentious age in which much of the public feels little connection to American history.

Something more articulate seems needed. Pope Benedict used to promote natural law, which can be defined and defended philosophically, as the proper basis for the legal order of a secular society. But today all significant centers of influence reject that view as regressive and implicitly theocratic. Clarence Thomas has occasionally spoken in its favor, but he can’t even look to the current Catholic hierarchy for support: a notorious essay, repeatedly praised by Pope Francis and published in a semi-official Vatican journal, denounces Catholic/Protestant cooperation in opposition to abortion and homosexual marriage as “an ecumenism of conflict that unites them in the nostalgic dream of a theocratic type of state.”

So, what can we do?

We cannot and should not stop presenting what we know to be true. We should keep arguing for natural law, moral tradition, the common good, recognition of the limitations on what government should try to do, and ultimately the sovereignty of God.

Our political action should aim to promote those things. That would include a defense of the freedom of the Church and the ability of Catholics to live in accordance with their faith. The situation is difficult, but never hopeless, and we should make the effort.

Above all, though, we should live in accordance with the Faith. That will, as always, be the greatest contribution we can make to the world. If we don’t treat it as the right way to live, why would anyone else bother with it?

Only time will tell how all this will end and what any of it means for Catholic relations to the Trump administration and American political life. The best way to advance any of our goals will often be far from obvious, and legitimate opinions will differ widely. May we remain honest, mindful of our ultimate concerns, and willing to learn from each other.

Politics has divided Catholics. May we find deeper grounds of unity.