The Never-Trumper Secret: MAGA’S Birth Certificate is the 1960 Sharon Statement

Little Rock, Arkansas, printed in 1959. Rally at the state capitol, protesting the integration of Central High School. Photograph by John T. Bledsoe. Source: Library of Congress, Public Domain,

Non-MAGA Republicans have taken to denouncing Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans while claiming MAGA has nothing to do with true conservatism. Yet, we’ve seen long-standing “true conservatives” such as Senator Lindsey Graham and, at times, even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, follow Trump’s wishes like lemmings. A look at one of the founding documents of the pre-MAGA modern conservative movement offers clues as to why. The document is known as the “Sharon Statement.”

The Sharon Statement was put out in the fall of 1960 by the group Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). This group met at the home of William F. Buckley and came about after Barry Goldwater failed in his first bid for the Republican nomination. It became the guiding light of the CPAC-led Conservative Movement up until Trump and his MAGA movement took it over, just as it has taken over the Republican Party.

However, there are only a couple of ways that MAGA highly differs from the tenets of the Sharon Statement. Trump’s embrace of tariffs is one of them. The second is his “love” for the communist leader of North Korea and his admiration of other authoritarians, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin. These things are contrary to the ideas put forth in the statement’s declarations.