Red hats are the new black hats
Donald Trump launched two wars on February 28. One with Iran and another among his base of true believers. Media Matters last week sketched out the rift inside MAGA that’s grown since:
Many prominent right-wing figures spoke out in praise of the war. Ben Shapiro praised Trump as “the most courageous commander in chief.” Marc Thiessen called Trump “one of the most consequential commanders in chief in American history.” Mark Levin gushed over the “humane” war. And one Fox guest even suggested that the war “could qualify him once again for a Nobel Peace Prize.”
However, a wide variety of streamers and podcasters have broken with the administration, with Tucker Carlson calling the decision “absolutely disgusting and evil.” Streamer Adin Ross called it “really fucking stupid.”
Red hats are the new black hats, and MAGA knows it. Many don’t like the look. Not one bit.
Melissa Ryan posts a few of the MM links on MAGA infighting at Ctrl Alt Right Delete:
- Laura Loomer lashing out at Megyn Kelly as not MAGA (with some sexist language)
- Kelly calling her former Fox News Colleague Sean Hannity a “supplicant to Donald Trump” who exists to “puff” Trump up
- Ben Shapiro calling Kelly an “unbelievable coward”
- And (completely unrelated to Megyn Kelly), Groyper Nick Fuentes calling Donald Trump “demonic” and “diabolical.”
“It’s objectively good when MAGA fights amongst themselves. It weakens their movement and their hold on the base. It’s energy they’re spending on one another rather than harming the rest of us,” Ryan writes:
MAGA is a coalition with differing ideologies brought together under Trump’s umbrella. The Epstein files already weakened them, and Iran has the potential to do so even further. Especially as Donald Trump is a lame duck president, and given what Americans can see of his declining physical health, it seems unlikely that Trump would be able to hang on for a third term even if that’s what he very much wants to do.” But will the faithful come back?
The MAGA faithful see their very worst qualities “redeemed” in Trump. Jesus tells them to love their neighbors. Trump tells them the opposite. He models that it’s okay to lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead in this world. Guess which gospel they’d rather follow? They chose Trumpism with a Jesusy glow.
Trump has lived a privileged life under the blanket of elite impunity for nearly 80 years. He’s evaded meaningful punishment for his misdeeds both in private and public life. MAGA believers thought they’d be covered by the same unholy dispensation. But with his Iran war, Trump finally has ripped down the myth of Americans as the good guys that they learned from infancy. They considered it a birthright. Now the world is asking cult members to account for themselves. They don’t like that either. Not one bit.
We on the left have long held a more nuanced view of America’s mixed legacy. But on balance, we believed that “long arc of the moral universe bent toward justice” stuff, that American ideals and principles of equal justice still meant something. We don’t like wearing black hats either.
Canadian-born Leigh McGowan is pissed.
The question now is will the prodigals return to Trump’s fold?
“I’m just going to be brutally frank,” adviser Steve Bannon said over the weekend. “That was not pitched in the 2024 campaign. It just wasn’t. We’re going to bleed support.”
But Trump is betting that they repent. Ryan observes:
His Regime is the path for MAGA’s more extreme influencers to have actual power, and those like Kelly who screwed up their chance for a more mainstream audience and now rely on MAGA to make a living. A fractured MAGA coalition shrinks MAGA’s political capital and the available profit from the grift instantly. These folks might all be upset at Trump over Epstein and/or Iran and hate one another, but you can argue that they still need him and one another to have influence.
Thus, rumors of MAGA’s demise may be greatly exaggerated.