Much has been made of the differences between President Trump, in particular, and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, in general, and traditional conservatives that used to be the policy rudder of the Republican Party. Eakinomics is one of the latter and often gently chides the Trump Administration for its policy stances. To help the reader more easily understand the critiques, let us begin 2026 by being clear about some of the fault lines. (Note: This is the elevator version and is no substitute for a decent civics course, reading (and HEEDING) the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and going once through Public Finance by Harvey Rosen and Ted Gayer.) Here are the top three:

1. Respect for individual values. Traditional conservativism is built on the right to personal freedom and the respect for individuals’ values as they pursue that freedom. It means something when people part with their own hard-earned money to buy their child a fourth doll and the government should respect this value in its policymaking. The MAGA government does not care about individuals’ values because it assumes it knows best. President Trump is comfortable lecturing the public about the error in its ways of having too many dolls. And there is no problem, no cost attached to, a policy that takes that option away.
2. Fairness-based policies. Traditional conservatives recognize that there is a wide diversity of values, which sometimes leads to conflicts over the best policy. One of the key roles of government is to broker (compromise) policies that represent the most fair outcome possible. They also recognize that fairness will be in the eye of the beholder, so a corollary is that the outcome should be as resilient to changes in the control of government as possible. As noted above, MAGA does not respect others’ values and there is no fairness debate. Indeed, from this perspective a “fairness” debate makes no sense. An opponent is simply wrong.
3. The role of government. Traditional conservatives start from the proposition that individuals are free to organize their lives as they see fit, have the right to their property and its use. The government protects those property rights and then steps in only when the following simple test indicates that is should:

• Can the good or service be provided by the private sector? If yes, the issue is settled. If not,
• Can the good or service be provided by the government? If yes, then
• Can the good or service be provided more fairly and efficiently by the government? If yes, then the government has a role. Otherwise, not.

There are some clear cases for the government, with national defense as the simplest example. But the resulting government is as small and non-intrusive as possible, and its size and boundaries dictated by a simple logic. In the MAGA world, the government does what it wants on behalf of the political agenda of its leaders. Period. As frustrating as it is to Eakinomics, the reality is that there is no logic by which to understand some of the non-traditional policies of the Trump Administration other than political opportunism. Political opportunism is the logic.

There will be lots of examples of these differences in 2026. Buckle up.