The American conservative movement is currently engaged in an ideological civil war with decades-old roots. In the mid-20th century, the Republican party was heavily influenced by the ‘Goldwater Conservatives,’ whose presumed ideological herald was Sen. Barry Goldwater. Starting in the very last years of the 1950s, they were challenged by a new, young, media-savvy generation of conservative thinkers. Centered around publicist William F. Buckley and his close ally Irving Kristol, this new movement gradually earned the name ‘neoconservatives.’
In a nutshell, the disagreements between the two conservative camps were focused on three policy issues: the fiscal size of government, the role of the traditional family, and America’s role on the world stage. The Goldwater faithful preferred a small government with a strictly limited budget, they fiercely defended traditional marriage, and they were wary of American military engagement abroad. By contrast, the neocons favored the modern welfare state (with marginal differences from the political left) and gradually separated themselves from the traditional family. However, their biggest controversy with the Goldwater tradition had to do with America’s military role on the world stage. Where the traditional conservatives proposed isolationism, the neocons advocated global interventionism.
Since Trump’s emergence on the political scene a decade ago, the center of gravity in the American conservative movement has shifted in the traditionalist direction. It has become culturally and socially acceptable—some would almost say ‘cool’—to harbor traditional values. At the same time, this has not come with any backlash against competing values; the reignited belief in faith, family, and fiscal conservatism—which is essentially what the MAGA movement is about.