The Other MAGA War… At Home

**Erin Ryan** (0:00)
Our team is taking a well-deserved break this Fourth of July weekend, but we don't want to leave you without something entertaining and educational. This week, we've got an episode of Runaway Country with Alex Wagner. Every Thursday, the veteran journalist sits down with everyday Americans and political experts to zero in on the stories that matter. In this episode, Alex is digging into MAGA's misogyny, a topic near and dear to my heart. And by near and dear to my heart, I mean it is constantly on my mind. It feels like so many things in America make sense right now when looked through the lens of MAGA misogyny. And I'm so glad that Alex is digging in, talking to a former trad wife, talking about Heritage Foundation's sexist policy proposals with me.
And if you like it, be sure to check out Runaway Country every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.

**Alex Wagner** (0:49)
Hi, everyone. What a week, or so I would imagine. Though I am technically still out of office this week, before I left the podcasting studio, the Cracker Jack Runaway Country team put together an episode on an issue we thought would probably not be resolved by the air date, the repression of women. Happy Women's History Month, 2026
If you have been spending a lot of time on social media recently, which please don't, you might actually be confused right now about what year it is.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:19)
When I told my husband my favorite sandwich is a French dip sandwich, he said he doesn't recall ever having one, which sounded so ludicrous to me that I had to make him one. I started by salting and peppering my chuck roast, searing it off on both sides before transferring it over to my crock pot. I added in some onion with my roast, topped it with beef broth, my onion soup mix, a little bit of Worcestershire sauce, before letting that go for 6 hours on low. This was absolutely divine and lucky rated it an 8.5 out of 10, which is amazing in his bucks.

**Alex Wagner** (1:54)
Not even a 10 with a homemade roll.
That is the internet's most notorious tradwife, Nara Smith. Her retrograde lifestyle has gone viral and become emblematic of a growing interest we see across the culture. The return to a simpler time. Women as homemakers managing their sphere of influence and child rearing and cooking and supporting and dare I say, indulging their spouse.
Accounts like Nara's and Ballerina Farms' Hannah Neelman make motherhood and housework look beautiful and glamorous and even relaxing, which is someone who lives in a house with two young children prone to wild messes, surprisingly violent fights and endless negotiations, I can assure you, is not the full picture. But these 21st century Betty Drapers are not the only ones selling the trad life. Right-wing think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation, are now pushing for women to forgo higher education and return to the home. Because centering families and heterosexual marriage, they claim, will stave off the collapse of the United States.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:04)
So we had the sexual revolution, we had the upheavals in the 60s, you had no fault divorce, breaking down of so many social norms, and out of wedlock, births skyrocketed. Part of that was a cultural decay. That was supercharged fortunately by government policy. So you had Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, welfare programs, that was actually paying young women to have kids without getting married.
So when the Great Society and welfare programs said, look, we're gonna pay a whole lot of money in the tens of thousands to single unwed moms, you got more single unwed moms, and that helped to break down the marriage culture.

**Alex Wagner** (3:41)
Okay, that Heritage VP is not wearing sexy cocktail dresses and making elaborate French tip sandwiches for his spouse, but the Heritage Foundation is a powerful force when it comes to shaping national politics. Remember that this is the group that authored Project 2025 And now Heritage is releasing new plans, like Saving America by Saving the Family, which came out earlier this year. And it has some ideas that you can bet Stephen Sorry Feminists Miller is pretty excited about. Eliminating welfare for non-married parents, restricting tax benefits to women who marry and have kids before the age of 30, and no tax credits for women who return to work after having only one child. In this report, Heritage argues that the country's education policy should not coax young Americans to delay marriage while pursuing needless credentials. They've even suggested a marriage bootcamp for couples run by the Department of Health and Human Services. So lessons on love from yogurt and cocaine enthusiast, RFK Jr. Sounds awesome. If any of this sounds far-fetched, it is not. Sitting here in 2026, we can see the ways the Trump administration has followed Project 2025 nearly to the letter. Dismantling the federal bureaucracy and expanding presidential power, check. Shredding environmental regulations and expanding oil and gas exploration, check. Enacting highly questionable tariffs, check. Is it a stretch to think that Heritage's vision of the Handmaid's Tale is now a distinct possibility? No, it is not. Especially when you have a guy like this in the Oval Office. You can do anything. Whatever you want. Grab him by the f***.