"Was MAGA always the inevitable endpoint of conservatism?" The answer is Yes. But that requires us to properly understand just what "Conservatism" is. We need to distinguish it from Liberalism - which is the political philosophy of individual rights and limited government which dates back to the Age of Revolutions in the latter 18th century. The Liberal Revolution smashed the Ancien Regime, otherwise known as the Patriarchate, that throne-and-altar conception of society as organized in terms of vested hierarchy and privilege. The cardinal value of this Regime was ANTI-equality. They understood "freedom" in terms of knowing your place and fulfilling your God-given role in society. Liberalism was aimed like a dagger at this worldview and this anthropology. Conservative values are the values of Patriarchy. The Patriarchate/the Ancien Regime was brought down by Liberalism, but Patriarchal *values* persist. And not for no reason - Patriarchal values were essential to keep civilization going, when zero-sum competition reigned, levels of economic productivity and technological innovation were in the basement, and life was nasty, brutish, and short. Those values are less practical for us today, but they still have a tight grip on the minds of many. And one of the most enduring aspects of the Patriarchal worldview is the DENIAL of true universal political equality. The Conservative doesn't *really* believe that we're created equal. Conservatives are not to be confused with Right-liberals, who really are very different from them. Right-liberals value political equality, but they value individual liberty and small government (which is not to be equated with limited government) more. One of the biggest differences is that Conservatives are permanently tempted by the attractions of authoritarian conservative populism (more succinctly referred to as Fascism), while Right-liberals are diametrically opposed to the Fascists. The curious byways of American politics however have led the Right-liberals to go into political coalition with the Christian conservative populists; their interests are aligned to the extent that they are skeptical of the Left-liberal emphasis on egalitarianism and a robust measure of equality of outcomes. We are seeing now however how that coalition is exploding, spectacularly - and in a manner which threatens to bring down the Founders' Experiment.