MAGA Is Starting to Crack
MAGA Is Starting to Crack
www.theatlantic.com MAGA Is Starting to Crack
Now that Trump is president again, the right’s moment of unity is over.
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Paywall, so I can't get far, but if anyone thinks the messaging going forward won't be "conform or be cast out," then you don't understand who Trump and his sycophants are. This is as much a religious cult as it is a political operation.
Yes, they're quibbling about the details now that their guy is in power. Yes, he's pulling the rug out from under them, just like everyone said he would. Yes, they're starting to feel the gravity of electing a billionaire fraud who can be bought more easily than most politicians, but they'll double down and turn to apologetics before they risk being cast out of the in-group. As an ex-fundigelical, ask me how I know.
So, cling to whatever gives you hope—it's going to be a long two to four years—but don't be surprised when the "looming schism that causes MAGA to crumble" never comes.
ETA: And if that makes you frustrated or anxious, I would suggest channeling that energy into constructive endeavors like building a community. Support each other. Get involved in local happenings. Recognize that we are the ones who will have to save each other.
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"it's time to stop thinking about 'we' and 'them' and start thinking about 'us'." - Don't be a sucker (1947), Richard Collins
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"conform or be cast out,"
Are you quoting Rush or did they lift that line from somewhere else?
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I dunno if it originates elsewhere, and I wasn't quoting them in particular, but I did certainly think of Subdivisions when I wrote it!
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Eh, it's a cheap click bait to stir the pot on the "feud" between the old Trump guard (Bannon, Kirk, et al) and the techno-feudalists.
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For sure. Just trying to get ahead of the cope and remind people that need a reminder what they're dealing with. We'll never get the change we need if people keep hoping for a hero to save them or for the villains to monologue at a critical moment.
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Key few paragraphs below:
But the two groups also want different things. The nationalist right wants an economy that prioritizes and assists American-born families (specifically, traditional nuclear ones), sometimes at the expense of business interests; the tech right wants a deregulated economy that bolsters its bottom line. The nationalist right wants to stop almost all immigration; the tech right wants to bring in immigrant workers as it pleases. The nationalist right wants to return America to a pre-internet era that it perceives as stable and prosperous; the tech right wants to usher in a bold, globally focused new economy.
Already, the cracks have started to show. Last month, Trump’s pick of the Silicon Valley venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan as an AI adviser led to a bitter and very public spat between the two camps over visas for highly skilled immigrants. (“FUCK YOURSELF in the face,” Musk at one point told his critics on the right.) At the time, I argued that the MAGA honeymoon is over. The disagreements have only intensified. Last week, after former President Joe Biden used his farewell speech to warn about the influence of Silicon Valley oligarchs and the “tech industrial complex,” the white-nationalist influencer Nick Fuentes posted on X that “Biden is right.” Bannon in particular has not relented: Earlier this month, he told an Italian newspaper that Musk is a “truly evil person” and that would get the billionaire “kicked out” of Trump’s orbit by Inauguration Day. (Considering that Musk is reportedly getting an office in the West Wing, Bannon does not seem to have been successful in that quest.) In an interview with my colleagues Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer, Bannon described the tech titans as “nerds” whom Trump was humiliating. Seeing them on Inauguration Day was “like walking into Teddy Roosevelt’s lodge and seeing the mounted heads of all the big game he shot,” Bannon said.
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We already can guess how this will end. During his first administration, despite making populist promises on the campaign trail, Trump eventually sided with the wealthy. Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist during the start of his first term, pushed for tax hikes on the wealthy. Seven months into his presidency, Trump fired him, and then proceeded to pass tax cuts. In his new administration, the nationalist right will certainly make gains—it is thrilled with Trump’s moves around birthright citizenship and his pledge to push forward with mass deportations. But if it’s ever in conflict with what Trump’s rich advisers in the tech world want, good luck.
Remember, it was Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Musk who sat on the dais at Trump’s inauguration. Bannon, Keeperman, and Kirk were nowhere in sight.
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Bannon and the rest were still shilling for Trump before the election, though, so even if they're no longer the inner circle favorites, they're doing exactly as predicted: screwing up their faces and falling in line for another chance to be in proximity to power. They enjoy being in the in-group more than they care about their agendas. If they had any real conviction towards their personal goals, they would have dumped Trump long ago.
I expect the same from the billionaires he's keeping in his orbit this time around, and they'll fall in line like everybody else has done before them, because whatever character and self-respect they had left was sold to Trump for their own mere chance at power and enrichment.
Thanks for sharing more of the article, btw!
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Doesn't matter. The fascist is in power now, with almost no guardrails (and he will be working very hard to destroy whatever ones remain).
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