[12] Defunct Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Congressional caucuses Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Social media Miscellaneous Other After graduating from Stanford, Mac Donald clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and was subsequently an attorney-advisor in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a volunteer with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

[3] Mac Donald maintains that conservative values like small government, self-reliance and liberty can be defended without "recourse to invisible deities or the religions that exalt them.

"[3] She has testified on criminal justice and the decarceration movement before the US Senate Judiciary Committee,[16] has testified before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the US House Committee on the Judiciary,[17] and has advocated positions on numerous subjects including victimization, philanthropy,[18] immigration reform,[19] crime prevention,[20][21][22] racism, racial profiling,[23] black incarceration,[24] rape, effect of two parents on crime,[24] politics,[25][9] welfare,[26][27] and matters pertaining to cities[9] and academia.

"[19] The New York Times reported in January 2024 that in private emails with anti-DEI commentators affiliated with the Claremont Institute, Mac Donald had recounted "seeing all the nannies of color walking school children back to their apartments" and derided working mothers who "outsource ... raising a unique child to some one else, especially someone from the low IQ 3rd world" while they advance their careers.

[4] While talking to the conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, she accused President Barack Obama of "attacking the very foundation of civilization" by giving credibility to Black Lives Matter.

[34] During the 2016 presidential election, she described a speech by Donald Trump on criminal justice as "a radical, bold, and important change of course in the prevailing discourse about policing and crime.

[23] She has defended the Patriot Act and argued for secrecy and speed in handling problems as well as the sharing of information between departments within the intelligence community, and advocated that the benefits of government power be balanced against the risks of abuse.

[41] Writing in The New York Times in 2000, Robin Finn described Mac Donald as an "influential institute thinker who risks being stereotyped as a right-leaning academic curmudgeon".

[9] In The New York Times, Allen D. Boyer wrote a positive brief review of The Burden of Bad Ideas, concluding that "among discussions of urban malaise, where so much hot air has been recycled, this book has the freshness of a stiff, changing breeze".

[18] Tim Lynch, director of the Cato Institute's project on criminal justice, gave her 2016 book The War on Cops a negative review in Reason magazine, concluding, "What Mac Donald calls a 'war on cops' is better described as a much-needed debate about crime, law enforcement tactics, and how to deal with systemic police misconduct," and adding, "Conservatives have some worthwhile ideas to offer in this debate, but Mac Donald's polemics add heat, not light.

[42] In spring 2017, a protest group announced plans to "shut down" Mac Donald's speech on the Black Lives Matter movement at a college campus in California, calling her racist, fascist, and anti-black.