Through immigration crackdowns and cultural purges, President Trump is wielding government power to enforce a more rigid, exclusionary definition of what it means to be American.

Why it matters: The MAGA movement's obsession with American identity and Western civilization is shaping federal policy far more than in Trump's first term — fueling a reckoning over who belongs and what history should be remembered.

In MAGA's telling, America is the heir to ancient European civilizations, built on a Judeo-Christian foundation of white identity, meritocracy, traditional gender roles and the nuclear family. • These tenets are cast as universal truths — and mantras such as "America is an idea" or "diversity is our strength" are dismissed as liberal fictions.

Driving the news: That worldview is

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