The MAGA Crackup

Will Epstein be the straw that breaks MAGA’s back?

The American right is no stranger to fragile coalitions; fusionism, that rickety creation of the theorist Frank Meyer, sought to combine libertarianism and "traditional" values in the service of anticommunism made little sense once the Cold War was over.

MAGA is also a bit of a creaky structure, held together by the force of Mr. Trump’s personality—raising the question as to whether MAGA is a political movement or a personality cult. Both? Perhaps. But, big-picture, anyway, MAGA is supposed to be about: securing the border, reshoring manufacturing jobs, and putting an end to endless wars. But this last agenda item finds itself in direct conflict with the President's policy of unlimited support for and indulgence of Israel.

Frustration with Trump’s subservience toward Netanyahu in light of Israel’s continuing genocide and its unprovoked war on Iran reached a boiling point this week when Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel signaled that the Epstein case was now effectively closed—there is, we were suddenly informed, no 'client list' and Epstein committed suicide in his Manhattan jail cell.

MAGA stalwarts like Tucker Carlson and Saagar Enjeti, among many others, including—and importantly—the coterie of “podcast bros” who supported Trump in 2024, pointed out that the timing of what amounted to an about-face by Patel and Bondi was no coincidence, coming as it did during Bibi Netanyahu’s visit to Washington on Monday. That Epstein was an Israeli intelligence asset seems a reasonable assumption. That Trump is now covering this up at their behest seems equally reasonable. But his doing so has left a large and influential bloc of the MAGA coalition furious.

Yet the fight over Epstein is only one of a series of controversies roiling MAGA world. Trump’s decision last month to direct the US armed forces to act as an auxiliary to the IDF in its war on Iran was strenuously opposed by the Carlson or “America First” wing of the MAGA movement.

As we speak, Trump’s erstwhile Republican allies in Congress are pushing a bill that would increase sanctions on Russia. They are also pressuring the administration to send more military aid to Ukraine. We can discern the existence of a new lobbying campaign on the part of Ukraine by way of three stories that appeared this week:

1. On Thursday, POLITICO reported that Ukraine’s current Ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, “has fallen out of favor with Republicans over her role in a controversial 2024 visit by the Ukrainian president to a Scranton munition plant with Democratic lawmakers up for reelection.” She is expected to be replaced soon. This is a signal to Trump from Zelensky and his allies on the Hill that they will do whatever they have to do to keep the weapons flowing.

2. The following day, Friday, the cover of the Murdoch-owned New York Post, with the subtlety for which it is renowned, featured a picture of a dead infant under the headline “BARBARIC"—"Putin’s horror laid bare: How Russia [sic] drone hunted, executed 1-year-old.” No such cover stories from bombed-out Gaza are expected to be forthcoming from Mr. Murdoch’s tabloid. But the cover story shows that the pro-war Murdoch-Levin-Graham wing of the party is pushing hard for the US to remain a party to the war in Ukraine.

3. POLITICO (keeping busy this week) also published a hit piece on Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Bridge Colby after Colby tried to halt weapons shipments to Ukraine. Relying on no fewer than 7 unnamed sources, the story painted Colby as a rogue element within the Defense Department.

The reason the opponents of a sensible pro-American foreign policy are doing this is that it works. We can see that only 6 months into his presidency, when confronted with a choice between doing the bidding of war hawks like Murdoch or doing what he said he was going to do on the campaign trail and pursue an America First foreign policy, Trump has folded again and again.

James W. Carden is editor of TRR.