A staunch militarist, he became at the end of his ideological path one of the most prominent far-right theorists against the Spanish Republic, leading the reactionary voices calling for a military coup.

He was among the young Spanish intellectuals deeply affected by their country's humiliating defeat in the Spanish–American War of 1898, along with José Martínez Ruiz ("Azorín"), Pío Baroja and others forming the literary Generation of '98.

Maeztu became one of the most prominent defenders of the regime of Miguel Primo de Rivera and called for Spain to "recover its 16th-century sense of Roman Catholic mission".

Since 1932, he made it constant in several articles for Acción Española, La Nación and the ABC newspaper, his admiration for Adolf Hitler, also showing himself to be a supporter of the anti-Semitism of the Nazi Party.

Also from the pages of ABC, he came to express his desire that a nationalist movement similar to Hitler's would triumph in Spain to confront democracy and Marxism, asking the extremist José María Albiñana to lead the project.