Conservatives vs. MAGA

Marjorie Taylor Greene has moved to dethrone Speaker Johnson because, as an NPR newscaster reported, he did not stand firm for the conservative demands of MAGA.  I cannot understand what conservative and MAGA have to do with each other. 

For the last hundred years, to be conservative has meant a restraining force on liberal agendas but not an impenetrable road block.  Conservatives have said they were for smaller government but never reduced its size or power. They wanted less regulation of business, lower taxes on corporations and upper classes, restrictions on union organizing, and as slowly as possible, suggested enacting advancements for social justice and economic security for the less affluent.  It was, said conservatives, a matter of prudent common sense. They were not serious about a smaller government.  A big one was fine with them if it served their needs. Yet, they were adamant about the primacy of individual freedom from government intrusion affecting their property and personal rights.

Strangely enough in the 1980s conservatives began to make a common cause of movements that demanded unconditional adherence to social rules preserving patriarchy, nuclear families, and heterosexuality.  Following those tenets was the only possible way of being a person.  In addition, anti-immigrant nationalism, opposition to abortion under any circumstance, suspicion of expansion of civil and human rights, etc. were also adopted. An odd alliance as self described social conservatives could implement their agendas only if the federal government became more authoritarian, imposed social standards on individual lives and criminalized any deviation. 

Conservative libertarians can’t coexist with social reactionaries.  One will eventually absorb the other.  And so it has happened as the old “Moral Majority” mutated into MAGA leaving no room for conservative libertarians and their kin.  The presence of conservatives has not put any restraint on MAGA extremism.   MAGA intends to rule with an iron fist, and the worst, most blasphemous sin is their claim to do it in the name of Christian nationalism.  There is nothing Christ like or Christian about it.   I suspect God is not amused.