MAGA’s Postmodernist Roots

Nothing good will come of the political right adopting the postmodernist playbook of the political left.

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I’ve noticed an uptick in essays and articles from commentators I follow identifying MAGA in general, and President Trump in particular, as children of our postmodern age. Rob Tracinski was an early proponent with his The Post-Modern Right article back in March of 2023. More recently, The Dispatch’s Jonah Goldberg has made similar arguments with Controlling the Truth, as has Kevin Williamson—sharp and entertaining as ever—with The Other POTUS (That is, Postmodernists of the United States). I’m sure others outside my immediate sphere have made observations along the same lines. I’d also bet the MAGA crowd—including Trump himself—would violently oppose this characterization. After all, isn’t postmodernism a hallmark of the political left, the very thing they claim to despise? Hold that thought for a moment.

What exactly is postmodernism? Here’s a representative quote from Britannica:

postmodernism, in Western philosophy, a late 20th-century movement characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion of reason; and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power.

Postmodernism is a strain of philosophy that constantly questions the rules, pokes holes in “objective” truths, and turns the serious business of metaphysics (is reality out there or in our heads?), epistemology (how we know), morality, and—yes—politics into a skeptic mishmash of perspectives and performances. It’s fundamentally a negation of Enlightenment philosophy which champions reality, reason, objective truth, rationality, individualism, respect for and protection of individual rights, limited government, and—although often with only one or two cheers—capitalism, with free markets for goods, services and ideas.

MAGA and Trump fit postmodernism to a T, embracing many of its classic attitudes—mostly without bothering about the philosophy behind. In the MAGA universe, truth is less about cold, hard facts and more about what sticks—what sounds right, feels true, or gets shouted loudest.

Take Trump’s infamous claim that he had the biggest inauguration crowd ever. Photographs and crowd experts might disagree, but facts didn’t really matter. What mattered was the confidence and repetition of the claim—say it often enough, and it becomes a “truth” lodged in the collective imagination of his supporters. This is postmodernism’s playground: “truth” by assertion and performance, not by verification of facts of reality.

MAGA’s relationship with truth resembles a magician’s act. The audience isn’t just watching; they’re complicit in the illusion. As long as the show entertains and reinforces their beliefs, the boundary between reality and illusion blurs—and who wants to spoil a good magic trick with pesky facts?

If postmodernism has a cardinal sin, it’s believing in grand, sweeping stories that explain everything. The “grand narrative” was king in The Enlightenment Project, promising that reason, progress, and science would lead humanity to new heights. Postmodernism is hostile to this idea.

Trump’s style walks away from any grand narrative about how presidents should behave or what American politics ought to look like. Instead of diplomacy and policy rooted on the individual rights of Americans, he offers something more akin to do-what-I-feel-like. “I alone can fix it,” he declares—further upending ideas about rational governance or institutional trust that was already eroding under his predecessors. A friend today may be a foe tomorrow, only to become a friend again the day after, all depending on the whims of the man. I doubt he has heard—or cares—about Enlightenment philosophy, but his implicit equivalent is diametrically opposite, landing him in postmodern territory.

MAGA rallies become a series of smaller narratives, each delivered with ample hyperbole but little concern for overarching consistency. Different crowds get different versions of reality—none anchored to fundamental principles. The larger picture is fragmented, fluid, and profoundly postmodern in spirit.

Postmodernism loves spectacle and performance. Reality isn’t something to be neutrally observed; it’s a stage to be inhabited, acted out, and reimagined. Nobody has turned politics into performance art quite like Trump, except for perhaps Teddy Roosevelt, who in many ways was postmodern before postmodernism was invented (you can listen to him here). Trump brought his reality TV star sensibility straight to the Oval Office. His ALL-CAPS Truth Social feed is a stream-of-consciousness broadcast with sound bites designed to grab attention rather than provide policy analysis. Press conferences become improvisational theater, where theatrics overshadow facts. Trump is less a politician than a postmodern mountebank—demonstrating the power of image, repetition, and emotion to craft a, to some compelling, to others revolting, new politics.

MAGA’s appeal is not about nuance or introspection but about feeling—group chants, red hats, and bombastic speeches create a shared experience. It’s politics you don’t just watch but participate in; through cheers, memes, and retweets, everyone gets a role in the show. This is pure postmodernism: the medium is the message, and the message is whatever credibility the crowd decides to grant it. Add to this its postmodern penchant for mixing cynicism with irony—a “who cares if the narrative makes sense, as long as it works” attitude. Why stick to one story when you can have all of them at once?

But doesn’t this largely describe the progressive left as well, you ask? Yes, it does. What’s new is that MAGA has adopted—and supercharged—the left’s playbook, bringing postmodernism to the political right, making it largely indistinguishable from the political left. Mamdani or Trump? AOC or JD Vance? Rachel Maddow or Laura Loomer? Pest or Cholera?

Let’s hope that shining the light on MAGA’s postmodernist roots sparks soul-searching among more sober representatives of the political right—those uneasy passengers on the Trump/MAGA train and those who refused to get on in the first place. Hopefully, the former can get off in time and together with those left behind on the platform offer an alternative to the looming wreck. If not, one thing is certain: with postmodernist irrationality dominating both the political right and left, with “reality” in your head trumping reality out there, with “facts” being whatever you want them to be, and with reason taking a backseat to emotion, Americans will continue to lose sight of the rational Enlightenment philosophy our country was founded on. Deprived of its guidance, they will feel increasingly lost and look for leaders with an increasingly authoritarian bent to lean on. As a result, the march towards more statism—more government intrusions in our lives meaning more individual rights violations—will continue unchecked.