MAGAs

The uproar over Tucker Carlson’s interview with white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes has sparked yet another round of MAGA civil war talk.

Full disclosure: I previously worked for Carlson at the Daily Caller, so I’ve had a front-row seat for this ongoing battle for a long time now.

In case you missed the latest: Carlson invited Fuentes onto his podcast. What followed wasn’t an interview so much as a warm bubble bath of mutual validation — the kind of “conversation” that helps launder extremist ideas.

Enter Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation — once the intellectual vanguard of conservatism, now something closer to an emotional support group for people who think President Reagan was too soft. Responding to whispers that Heritage might distance itself from Carlson, Roberts rushed out a video to reassure the faithful: Heritage will have no enemies to its right.

Roberts disagreed with Fuentes (good for him) but insisted Heritage didn’t become the top conservative think tank by “canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians.” He also called Carlson’s critics a “venomous coalition” who “serve someone else’s agenda” — which echoes one of the oldest antisemitic tropes in the book.

And then something surprising happened: People inside Heritage actually pushed back (a brave move, given Heritage’s Orwellian “one voice” policy). Some even resigned.

The broader right-wing commentariat weighed in, too. Ben Shapiro called Carlson an “intellectual coward.” Ted Cruz made some noise. The Wall Street Journal editorial board huffed. And talk radio host Mark Levin criticized Fuentes and Carlson during a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition. For a brief moment, it looked like accountability was actually trending.

But … why this moment? Why now?

Keep in mind: Then-former President Trump dined with Fuentes in 2022 and wrongly claimed immigrants were eating pets in 2024. As president, he told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” in 2020. And of course he launched his political career by questioning President Obama’s birth certificate. I could go on.

Despite all of this, Trump’s grip on the conservative movement only grew firmer.

Meanwhile, right-wing antisemitism has metastasized on Trump’s watch — despite his support for Israel.

Charlottesville, anyone?

The “alt-right” has shed its “alt.” They’re just “right” now.

This is especially observable when it comes to young conservatives who came of age during the Trump era. Indeed, one Heritage staffer told the New York Post that “a growing number” of Heritage interns “actually agree” with Fuentes.

And here’s the irony: The same conservative media figures now sounding the alarm helped build the machine.

Take Levin. Fuentes recently admitted that it was Levin’s radio show that first radicalized him. “He planted the seed, at least,” Fuentes told Carlson.

Likewise, aside from endorsing Trump in 2024, Shapiro made conspiracy theorist Candace Owens famous when his Daily Wire hired her to host a podcast on its platform after she became buddies with Kanye West and after she suggested the only problem with Adolf Hitler was that “he had dreams outside of Germany.”

So if these more mainstream Trumpers are horrified now, it’s probably because they helped create monsters — and those monsters are now coming to devour their creators, as monsters always do.

Rest assured, though, this rot is not limited solely to antisemitism. In recent months, MAGA figures such as Vivek Ramaswamy, FBI Director Kash Patel and even Vice President JD Vance (who is married to an Indian American woman) have all been targets of racist abuse online.

It’s important to note that none of these folks are considered “Never Trump” or Reagan conservatives. They are Trump allies. The revolution devours itself. (First they came for the Never Trumpers.…)

Again, this is far from the first skirmish in the MAGA civil war. But all of these internecine fights obscure the root cause of the problem: Trump. And yet, the orange emperor himself? Off-limits.

The fever won’t break while Trump’s still around, serving as a magnet for the worst people and cultivating the toxic ecosystem that made all of this right-wing racism possible, if not inevitable.

So by all means, conservatives: Condemn Carlson, denounce Fuentes and scold Heritage for failing to police the right and only punching left.

But as long as you avert your eyes from Trumpism, your righteous outrage is just theater — the political equivalent of aggressively mopping the floor while the pipes keep bursting.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

MAGA has a problem, in the form of Donald Trump. Put simply: MAGA wants to define what MAGA (or “America first”) means, and Donald Trump wants it to mean whatever he says at any given moment.

I should offer a little definitional clarity and political nuance. Make America Great Again means different things to different people. The Trump coalition is not monolithic, it contains factions that do not necessarily consider themselves to be MAGA. But as shorthand, MAGA is an identifiably distinct bloc on the right, and it’s the dominant faction in the broader GOP coalition. Its internal diversity notwithstanding, it still has a worldview or ideology. And the MAGA faithful are increasingly frustrated by the fact that Trump doesn’t always share, or prioritize, that ideology.

They believed that if you could just “let Trump be Trump” he would follow their conception of MAGA. In Ronald Reagan’s first term, many movement conservatives were frustrated by what they perceived as the Gipper’s drift toward centrism. They blamed moderates in the administration. “Let Reagan be Reagan” became a rallying cry on the right.

“It’s a piece of conventional wisdom on the new American right that Donald Trump struggled in his first term because he hired the wrong people — old-think Bush Republicans, figures like Rex Tillerson and Steven Mnuchin, who didn’t have a populist bone in their bodies,” the news website Semafor’s Ben Smith offers in an astute analysis.

As a result, Smith continues, “Trump’s most passionate supporters weren’t going to make that mistake again. They created initiatives like American Moment, Project 2025, and others aimed at grooming and credentialing a cadre of MAGA appointees. When Trump took office, the America Firsters moved en masse into the Department of Defense. Big Tech avengers seized the antitrust apparatus. Conspiracy-minded podcasters took over the FBI.

“And yet — just as Trump often ignored his conventional advisers in the first term, he’s stunned loyalists by sweeping aside this carefully assembled apparat in 2025.”

Trump said as much to the Atlantic magazine last month: “I think I’m the one that decides” what “America first” means.

“It turns out that personnel isn’t policy,” the executive director of the American Conservative, Curt Mills, “glumly” told Smith. The idea that “personnel is policy” is another Reagan-era mantra; put Reaganites in important positions and you’ll get Reaganite policies. Putting Trumpists in powerful positions doesn’t yield the same results.

Immigration hawks have been panicking over the president’s suggestion that farm and hotel workers should be excluded from his deportation schemes. As Trump told Fox News, “I’m on both sides of the thing.” Foreign policy “restrainers” were beclowned by his support of Israel’s strikes on Iran and his apparent about-face on helping Ukraine.

On China, Trump’s been a hawk as promised, except when he hasn’t, allowing NVIDIA to sell chips to China, and ignoring the law by refusing to sell or shutter TikTok.

Then there’s the Jeffrey Epstein fiasco, which has bedeviled Trump for weeks. It’s intensity and durability can best be explained by the fact that it divides those who define Trumpism as loyalty to Trump and those who believe that loyalty would be, must be rewarded by a cleansing of corrupt globalist elite — or something.

In short, there is no “Trumpism” that is an analogue to Reaganism. Reaganism is a philosophical approach. What defines Trump’s reign is better understood as a psychological phenomenon both as an explanation of his behavior and of his fans’ cultish and performative loyalty. To the extent Trump has a philosophy it is to follow his instincts, which are most powerfully informed first by his own ego but also the dramaturgy of professional wrestling, reality TV and Norman Vincent Peale’s prosperity gospel.

He’s said many times that he considers unpredictability a virtue in itself, which by definition means he is going to disappoint anyone who expects philosophical coherence. When Trump was a bull in a China shop, the people most excited by the sound of breaking vases and dishware assumed there was a broader method to the madness. But now the same people are learning that Trump won’t be saddled by his fans any more than he is by norms.

This was always going to be the case (as I noted in 2017), but what adds to MAGA’s frustration is that anyone can see and copy the bull-handling techniques that are most likely to work. Compliment him, call him “daddy,” celebrate his genius and expertise, and you too can manipulate him with at least moderate success.

Perhaps most significant, it’s becoming clear that a movement defined by loyalty to a mercurial personality is bound to split apart once that personality leaves the stage — if not sooner.

X: @JonahDispatch

President Trump’s decision to strike three nuclear sites in Iran will almost assuredly draw more criticism from some of his supporters, including high-profile backers who had said any such move would run counter to the anti-interventionism he promised to deliver.

The lead-up to the strike announced Saturday exposed fissures within Trump’s “Make America Great Again” base as some of that movement’s most vocal leaders, with large followings of their own, expressed deep concern about the prospect of U.S. involvement in the Israel-Iran war.

With the president barred from seeking a third term, what remains unknown is how long-lasting the schism could be for Trump and his current priorities, as well as the overall future of his “America First” movement.

Among the surrogates who spoke out against American involvement were former senior advisor Steve Bannon, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), commentator Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point. Part of their consternation was rooted in Trump’s own vocalized antipathy for what he and others have termed the “forever wars” fomented in previous administrations.

As the possibility of military action neared, some of those voices tamped down their rhetoric. According to Trump, Carlson even called to “apologize.”

Here’s a look at what some of Trump’s biggest advocates had said about U.S. military involvement in Iran:

Steve Bannon

On Wednesday, Bannon, one of the top advisors in Trump’s 2016 campaign, told an audience in Washington that bitter feelings over Iraq were a driving force for Trump’s first presidential candidacy and the MAGA movement. “One of the core tenets is no forever wars,” Bannon said.

But the longtime Trump ally, who served a four-month sentence for defying a subpoena in the congressional investigation into the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, went on to suggest that Trump will maintain loyalty from his base no matter what. On Wednesday, Bannon acknowledged that while he and others will argue against military intervention until the end, “the MAGA movement will back Trump.”

Ultimately, Bannon said that Trump would have to make the case to the American people if he wanted to get involved in Iran.

“We don’t like it. Maybe we hate it,” Bannon said, predicting what the MAGA response would be. “But, you know, we’ll get on board.”

Tucker Carlson

The commentator’s rhetoric toward Trump was increasingly critical. Carlson, who headlined large rallies with the Republican during the 2024 campaign, earlier this month suggested that the president’s posture was breaking his pledge to keep the U.S. out of new foreign entanglements. Trump clapped back at Carlson on social media, calling him “kooky.”

During an event at the White House on Wednesday, Trump said that Carlson had “called and apologized” for calling him out. Trump said Carlson “is a nice guy.”

Carlson’s conversation with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that day laid bare the divides among many Republicans. The two sparred for two hours over a variety of issues, primarily about possible U.S. involvement in Iran. Carlson accused Cruz of placing too much emphasis on protecting Israel in his foreign policy worldview.

“You don’t know anything about Iran,” Carlson said to Cruz, after the senator said he didn’t know Iran’s population or its ethnic composition. “You’re a senator who’s calling for the overthrow of a government, and you don’t know anything about the country.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

The Georgia Republican, who wore the signature red MAGA cap for Democratic President Biden’s State of the Union address in 2024, publicly sided with Carlson, criticizing Trump for deriding “one of my favorite people.”

Saying the former Fox News commentator “unapologetically believes the same things I do,” Greene wrote on X this past week that those beliefs include that “foreign wars/intervention/regime change put America last, kill innocent people, are making us broke, and will ultimately lead to our destruction.”

“That’s not kooky,” Greene added, using the same word Trump used to describe Carlson. “That’s what millions of Americans voted for. It’s what we believe is America First.”

Alex Jones

The far-right conspiracy theorist and Infowars host posted on social media earlier in the week a side-by-side of Trump’s official presidential headshot and an artificial intelligence-generated composite of Trump and former Republican President George W. Bush. Trump and many of his allies have long disparaged Bush for involving the United States in the “forever wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Writing “What you voted for” above Trump’s image and “What you got” above the composite, Jones added: “I hope this is not the case…”

Charlie Kirk

Kirk said in a Fox News interview at the start of the week that “this is the moment that President Trump was elected for.” But he had warned of a potential MAGA divide over Iran.

Days later, Kirk said that “Trump voters, especially young people, supported President Trump because he was the first president in my lifetime to not start a new war.” He also wrote that “there is historically little support for America to be actively engaged in yet another offensive war in the Middle East. We must work for and pray for peace.”

In Kirk’s view, “The last thing America needs right now is a new war. Our number one desire must be peace, as quickly as possible.”

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press.