To what extent can the elite liberal critique of MAGA be reduced to the concerns of the civil to the unruly passions of the nationalist?
ChatGPT says: 1. Civil order (elite liberal perspective).
Elite liberal critique tends to focus on the erosion of norms, procedures, and institutions. The concern is that MAGA, in its populist style, disregards established processes—elections, courts, media, bureaucratic expertise—and instead elevates loyalty, charisma, and grievance. For liberals, this looks like a betrayal of the “civil”—reasoned debate, rule of law, checks and balances, minority rights—replaced by spectacle and passion.
2. Unruly passions (MAGA nationalist energy).
MAGA draws energy from nationalism, resentment at perceived cultural displacement, and the sense that liberal civility masks a rigged system. From this perspective, elite civility is hypocrisy—a cover for domination by technocrats, corporations, and globalists. MAGA embraces transgression, outrage, and even chaos as forms of authenticity and resistance.
3. Reduction, but not exhaustion.
You can say that the liberal critique does largely reduce MAGA to unruly passions undermining civility, but that framing misses something: for MAGA supporters, their project is not just passion but an alternative form of order—rooted in loyalty, tradition, hierarchy, and national identity. The clash is not reason vs. irrationality, but competing orders: procedural cosmopolitan liberalism vs. majoritarian nationalist solidarity.
4. Why the reduction happens.
Elite liberals are institutionally invested in civility, legality, and procedural legitimacy. So they interpret MAGA through the lens of threat to civility. This keeps the critique consistent with their values, but also makes it hard to see MAGA as anything other than rage, demagoguery, or pathology.
So the liberal critique can be reduced to that opposition, but only by flattening MAGA’s own self-understanding. It’s not merely unruly passion—it’s a competing vision of what counts as order, legitimacy, and justice.
Here’s how your question maps onto older political theory lineages:
Hobbes vs. Rousseau
Hobbes: worried about unruly passions. He thought only a strong sovereign could tame factionalism and prevent civil war. Elite liberal critiques of MAGA echo this Hobbesian fear—without restraint and institutions, politics devolves into chaos.
Rousseau: placed more trust in the general will of the people, even when expressed passionately. He distrusted elites who cloaked their interests in “civil” procedures. MAGA’s populist language has a Rousseauian flavor: the people should be sovereign, not bound by elite-imposed forms of civility.
Carl Schmitt (friend/enemy distinction)
Schmitt argued that politics is not about neutral procedures but about existential conflict between groups. MAGA embodies this view: politics as loyalty, identity, and enmity. Elite liberal critique insists this is dangerous—civil politics requires opponents, not enemies—but from a Schmittian perspective, the insistence on civility is just another mask for power.
Hannah Arendt (mass movements & authority)
Arendt saw mass movements (fascism, communism) as filling the void left by weakened traditional authority. MAGA’s “passions” fit her schema: people who feel dispossessed and unseen flock to a movement that offers meaning, solidarity, and action. Liberals counter that this kind of collective passion corrodes truth and accountability, replacing deliberation with spectacle.
Tocqueville (democracy and mores)
Tocqueville observed that democracy risks lapsing into tyranny of the majority when unmoored from civic habits and institutions. Liberal critiques of MAGA echo Tocqueville: they fear nationalist passions will overwhelm rights, pluralism, and institutional balance. MAGA counters that those institutions have already betrayed the people.
Elite liberals see themselves as defending Hobbesian order, Arendtian truth, and Tocquevillian balance against Schmittian nationalism and Rousseauian passion. To reduce the liberal critique of MAGA to civil vs. unruly is accurate as a snapshot, but historically, it’s part of a much older argument about whether politics should be grounded in procedures and norms, or in identity and passion.
LF: I’m reading the 2019 book, The calling of social thought: Rediscovering the work of Edward Shils, which says:
While regarding nationality as essential for civil society, Shils suggested that nationalism is in fact a danger to it. In his own words: ‘When nationality becomes nationalistic, it usually has become uncivil as well; the demand for complete national solidarity has often involved uncivil suppression’ (Shils, [1980] 1997a: 17). But what exactly does Shils mean by ‘nationalism’, and why is it so dangerous to civil society?Unfortunately, in contrast to his clear descriptions of nation and nationality, Shils does not give us a clear definition of nationalism. Yet, from the way he talks about it, it is a political and ideological concept, in contrast to the cultural, primordial concept of nationality. It is also posterior to nationality itself. ‘Nationalism arises out of nationality … . It adds emulative, combative, aggressive, bellicose elements to nationality. Hatred is not necessarily part of nationality; it frequently is so in nationalism’ (Shils, [1995b] 1997a: 188). It seems for Shils that nationalism’s real danger is in fact its violent, bellicose nature, which constitutes a threat to civil society. But what exactly is the nature of this threat? Shils indicates that it is dangerous because it introduces the element of violence within a society. ‘Nationalism … is aggressive against persons or groups in its own society. It is against those who disagree with their nationalistic programs and actions.’ Nationalism is thus ‘injurious to the maintenance of those norms [of a pluralistic, civil society]’ (Shils, [1995b] 1997a: 220–1).
So Shils finds nationalism to be unamicable towards civil society because it promotes violence against those who disagree with its programme. Yet, there is a strange circularity here. Shils never tells us what the content of the nationalist programme is, only that nationalists often (always?) use force to promote it. Since violence is, by definition, hostile to the maintenance of a civil society, nationalism is therefore necessarily hostile to it. To put it another way, Shils does not tell us whether there is anything intrinsic to the ideology of nationalism itself (or of any particular nationalism) that is problematical regarding civil society.
Another way of approaching Shils’ wariness towards nationalism is his understanding of it as an ideology and, more precisely, as a political ideology. It is in this sense that nationalism is such a threat to civil society, not because, perhaps, of anything intrinsic to nationalism itself, but simply by its nature as a political ideology. Shils pointed out that ‘ideological politics are alienative politics’, that is, they ‘attribute supreme significance to one group or class—the nation, the ethnic folk, the proletariat’. As such, they are absolutely hostile to Shils’ conception of civil society…
ChatGPT says: You’ve captured the crux of Shils’ ambivalence: nationality is civil, but nationalism, as he sees it, corrodes civility. Let me spell out what he means by “nationalism” and why he thinks it’s dangerous:
1. Nationality vs. Nationalism
Nationality: For Shils, this is a cultural and almost primordial attachment. It’s the shared sense of belonging—common history, language, symbols—that anchors individuals within a larger collective. It provides the emotional glue for civil society, stabilizing trust and solidarity.
Nationalism: This is not the same as nationality but something added on top of it—an ideological and political mobilization. It takes the affective bond of nationality and transforms it into a program: organized, purposeful, and often militant. Nationalism makes claims of supremacy, exclusivity, or purity.
2. Why Nationalism Becomes “Uncivil”
Shils thinks nationalism is uncivil because:
It introduces enmity into the heart of society. Nationalists don’t just celebrate belonging; they target those who dissent, deviate, or resist their program.
It transforms pluralistic bonds (where different groups coexist) into coercive solidarity (where only the nationalist version of “the nation” is legitimate).
It privileges one identity (the nation) above all others—making other affiliations (religious, professional, ethnic, ideological) suspect or secondary.
3. The Threat to Civil Society
Civil society, in Shils’ view, requires civility: norms of restraint, tolerance, negotiation, and pluralism. Nationalism undermines this because it:
Justifies violence in the name of solidarity.
Treats compromise as betrayal.
Alienates dissenters by branding them unpatriotic or enemies of the nation.
4. The Deeper Circularity You Noted
You’re right: Shils doesn’t give us a fully fleshed-out “content” of nationalism beyond its tendency to violence and ideological supremacy. That’s partly because, for him, the very fact that it becomes ideology—claiming total loyalty and ultimate meaning—is enough to mark it as uncivil. He equates “ideological politics” (whether nationalist, Marxist, or fascist) with hostility to civil society because all such ideologies absolutize one identity and delegitimize others.
So the core point: For Shils, nationalism is dangerous not necessarily because of its substantive claims (protectionism, sovereignty, independence, etc.) but because of its form as an ideology: absolutist, exclusionary, prone to coercion. Nationality can be plural and cultural; nationalism almost always tips into violence because it demands too much uniformity.