The MAGA Diaries

November 27, 2023
A journalist revisits her youthful dalliance with and later disaffection from the conservative movement in this entertaining and insightful debut. Puck correspondent Nguyen recounts her infatuation with conventional conservatism—she loved constitutional history and revered the founding fathers—at California’s Claremont McKenna College, where she hooked into a web of internships and mentors including John Elliott at George Mason University’s Institute for Humane Studies, who helped her land a stint at the Daily Caller. (She paints its founding editor Tucker Carlson as a nice man fond of antics like fly-casting in the newsroom.) But she came to realize that many conservative publications were disguised PR outfits bankrolled by right-wing foundations that pressured her and others to slant their reporting. Drifting away from conservatism after 2013, she started writing about politics at Vanity Fair, often reporting on right-wing figures; her distance from the movement increased after news broke that Elliott belonged to a secret circle of journalists who tried to infuse white-nationalist themes into mainstream conservative media. Nguyen cannily depicts conservatives as models of organizational strength, patiently growing their numbers through mentoring and career-building programs. Meanwhile, progressives she encounters are hampered in their efforts to foster new talent by donors who seek “instant gratification.” The result is a spirited take on America’s political operative class.