The Making of the MAGA New Right

Laura K. Field, PhD

Nonresident fellow, Governance Studies
Brookings Institute

At Busboys & Poets, 450K St 

Donald Trump's 2016 presidential victory presented a grand opportunity for people who are hardline strategists, and it set off a radicalization and reconfiguration of the American conservative intellectual world. In this presentation and on the 5th anniversary of the January 6 United States Capitol attack, Laura Field, who spent close to a decade in conservative academic circles, chronicles the rise of the New Right—the network of academics, public intellectuals, and influencers who provide ideological fuel to Trumpism. This movement includes figures such as Patrick Deneen, Christopher Rufo, Peter Thiel, and JD Vance. Their agenda is built to last, and it has dire long-term implications for liberal democracy.

The New Right has precedents in American history, but it is distinct for its youthfulness, misogyny, and extraordinary successes—most notably the elevation of Vance to the vice presidency. The movement—which draws together associates of the right-wing Claremont Institute, National Conservatives, Postliberals, and the Hard Right—advocates nationalist economics, tight borders, isolationism, and reactionary social values. It helped to strategize January 6th and created Project 2025. But above all, the New Right is engaged in a vast culture war against modern liberal pluralism. It is determined to harness state power and use it in new, illiberal ways, from college campuses to the international scene—all driven under the motto of restoring a pure America.

Incisive and urgent, this presentation tells the story of the thinkers of the New Right—and their powerful reconfiguration of American freedoms, values, and ideals.

Time will be allocated for Q&A.

"A meticulous and unsettling revelation of a right-wing plan for a 'new old-fashioned world." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing at the event.

Laura K. Field is a nonresident fellow in the Governance Studies program at Brookings, and a writer and political theorist in Washington, D.C. She holds a Ph.D. in political theory and public law from the University of Texas at Austin and has held faculty positions at Rhodes College, Georgetown University, and American University. Field is one of the country’s foremost experts on populist intellectualism and the American right. Her book “Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right” is out with Princeton University Press in November, 2025.

Field is currently a visiting scholar in residence at American University and a senior advisor for the Illiberalism Studies Program at George Washington University. A scholar of Rousseau and Nietzsche, she has a longstanding interest in political culture and how thinking (and writing, and rhetoric) shapes our lives, which pairs well with current questions about the crisis of liberalism and rising authoritarianism around the world. Field has published academic papers in The Journal of Politics, The Review of Politics, Polity, and numerous edited volumes. In addition to her academic work, she has written for The New Republic, Politico, The Bulwark, Le Monde and other publications. She is regularly cited in the national and foreign press.