As the midterms approach, the media is increasingly focused on the Democratic infighting that I’ve referred to as the party’s “circular firing squad.” Those “purity” battles are especially unwelcome right now, when ousting members of the racist cult that controls the GOP is Job One–and critical to national survival.
Because a lazy media is focused primarily on Democratic squabbles, it has largely missed the far more vicious MAGA infighting. A recent, really brilliant essay by Rick Wilson at LIncoln Square compared that infighting to the long history of revolutions that ate their own.
Wilson began by placing MAGA within that “entirely predictable pattern of revolutionary excess.” He relates some of that history: Robespierre and the Jacobins, the Bolsheviks, Pol Pot. And he argues that, while revolutions start with enemies outside the gates, they inevitably discover more enemies within them.
MAGA is by no means revolutionary France, Bolshevik Russia, or Democratic Kampuchea; it is in fact more chaotic, more foolish, more devoted to carbohydrates, and less able to understand history.
But the political psychology is recognizable.
Wilson enumerates the MAGA rifts that continue to expand, pointing out that, “as Trump grows weaker, MAGA constantly requires fresh proof of ideological purity.” There’s the battle between MAGA isolationists and hawks over Israel and Trump’s insane war in Iran–“the isolationists think Trump betrayed them by starting the war. The hawks think Trump betrayed them by trying to end it.” Then there’s the continuing coverup of the Epstein files, a coverup that “denied MAGA the apocalypse it had promised itself,” and led former Trump stalwarts (think Carlson, Thomas Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene) to abandon him.
There’s also the war within MAGA’s media ecosystem.
For a decade, right-wing media and social media arms of the revolution had one organizing principle: Donald Trump.
Now that the decaying emperor is visibly knocking on death’s door, the succession has begun, and the courtiers are discovering ideological differences they spent years pretending didn’t exist.
Tucker Carlson. Ben Shapiro. Megyn Kelly. Candace Owens. Laura Loomer. Mark Levin. The Fuentes faction. The Israel hawks. The Israel skeptics. The white nationalists. The anti-vax loons. The conspiracy entrepreneurs. The people denouncing the conspiracy entrepreneurs as grifters.
The coalition that once spent its evenings hunting liberals now spends more of its time hunting one another for ideological imperfections.
As Wilson notes, an outrage economy requires outrage. With “Daddy Trump’s physical and mental declines joining his failures on every topic they cared about,” cannibalism offers more fury than the Democrats.
Then there’s the very definition of America First.
What is the Revolution for, beyond the aggrandizement of the Dear Leader? That was enough for a long run, but no longer. Trump held these contradictions together because Trump never really had an ideology…. He was a personality cult with a licensing agreement.
Wilson points out that taking just the House in November will “dramatically accelerate the MAGA crackup.” Trump, of course, will blame congressional Republicans. (Congressional Republicans will probably blame a “secret cabal of communists.”)
A House loss means investigations. Hearings. Subpoenas. Legislative showdowns. Republican members scrambling to explain who lost the majority. They know who lost it: the gibbering orange lardsack currently besmirching 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with his white-trash decorating obsessions and monomania…
The isolationists will blame Iran. The hawks will blame Iran … after all, if only we’d just nuked Tehran, it would have all been solved. The immigration absolutists will blame insufficient deportations and not enough murders of American protestors. The populists will blame Wall Street. The donor class will blame the populists.
Everyone will blame the GOP’s utterly venal consultant class, which is admittedly one revolutionary tradition I completely endorse.
Then comes 2028.
Succession becomes real when the Dear Leader’s physical and political power starts to crack, and Trump’s is cracking like a Faberge egg on the floor of a biker bar. The revolutionary leader cannot rule forever until some AI dork can upload him to the cloud, which, thankfully, still seems a bit far off.
The knives are out.
MAGA is a revolutionary effort, and Wilson reminds us that revolutions “cannot tolerate ordinary disagreement. Every policy failure must therefore have an explanation involving betrayal, sabotage, or insufficient faith in the Cause.”
MAGA spent ten years teaching its voters that losing is evidence of treason. They were told over and over that the Democrats weren’t opposition, but pure evil. They were told compromise is surrender, institutions are conspiracies, experts are corrupt, and insufficient loyalty to Donald Trump is the greatest political sin.
Now those rules are being applied inside the movement.
You really need to read the whole, bracing essay. MAGA’s civil war isn’t enough, obviously–but it’s a beginning.
“The coalition that once spent its evenings hunting liberals now spends more of its time hunting one another for ideological imperfections.”
I’m going to use another movie quote here from the mother in “The Sixth Sense”:. “I am tired in my mind, I am tired in my body, I am tired in my heart.” We have been turned as a nation into “…hunting one another for ideological imperfections.” from the top federal level into our families and we cannot survive if we continue these battles. Trump’s and MAGA’s Fourth Reich is obvious in our families, our businesses, our churches, our schools, our politics, our villages, towns, cities and states. This deepening and widening abyss outcome appears to rely on the November 3rd General Election but we have to ask if Trump, et al, including the Supreme Court, both Congressional bodies, the USPS allows the election to happen unrestricted by voter suppression. “Eating Our Own…” is a perfect description of what is happening and we really do not know how or why it has been allowed to happen to the United States of America. The primary Trump control is by constant, monumental DISTRACTION.
The fact that Trump’s personal war on Iran is now being declared NOT A WAR by VP Vance but his killing continues as does Iran’s; a distraction and evidence of inability to unite even within the White House. Trump’s claiming ownership of the government foundation, its buildings, its national acreages throughout the country has spread from Canada to the Iran’s shores and per a news brief I received yesterday, he is avoiding it all being of interest to him by dying his hair dark brown. No idea if that is true anymore than what anything else is true today; will our own military turn its fully armed forces on us on our streets during his immigration roundups and in our polling places at his direction?
WILL THERE BE AN ELECTION ON NOVEMBER 3rd TO MAKE THE DECISION TO STOP FFEEDING?
The “Circular Firing Squad” has always been a straw man. It’s what a normal group of people look like as they work to form a consensus. The thing that has amazed me about MAGA is as long as Trump was in control, is how he has everyone in lockstep, from Right wing media, Congress, to SCOTUS, to his own cabinet. That was very NOT normal. That lockstep is what has given Trump his power.
It”s too bad that media (and even people on this blog) has focused on one as a weakness and the other as strength, when in reality, actual debate is healthy and blind obedience is the real threat.
I wonder, is “our” First-Son-In-Law at home today on this Labor Day Holiday to rest up from his advisory meetings with Putin and Zelensky? I also wonder what he is being paid to serve in his governmental position when his family can probably afford to purchase Ukraine outright and end the war? We know what would happen to Ukraine should Daddy-In-Law order it be done.
Dan, you are correct about debate, at least civil debate.
Kushner is just another Trump person, albeit a bit less of a gross one, but does seem sleazy, nonetheless.
If the MAGA crowd is to survive somewhat intact, it will have to find a new dirtbag to worship.
“the gibbering orange lardsack” – this description of DJT is so funny and so true.
FEAR! It’s the driving force behind every cult. Who would fear a “libtard”? How many times do you have to hear that Democrats are evil communists, waiting to steal everything you own, before the thought becomes part of you? Tell a lie often enough, it becomes true.
Orange Jesus gave them tax cuts. It doesn’t matter that ninety percent of the cuts went to one percent of the people. A cut is a cut.
The reason MAGATS wanted full disclosure of the Epstein Files is that they were convinced that the demon Democrats would be exposed. Now they’re confused, because Dems are working to make the files public, while the “good guys” are furiously working to hide them. If I recall correctly, that’s what’s known as cognitive dissonance. It can tear a cult apart.
THINK,
VOTE!!!!
I had to read the original post from Rick Wilson out loud to my wife. I had to because its emotional stir made me smile – if ever so briefly. I then posted it on Facebook and the bots attacked me. I must be doing something right!
This is one of your very BEST! (Faberge egg on a biker bar floor….still laughing about that one.)
Promises made, promises broken.
Don’t forget that Trump’s rise to power came amid populism. What was the Democrats’ reaction? They destroyed their populist left with the help of the dynastic sycophants. It cost them the election. I haven’t cared for Elizabeth Warren because of her feminist attack against Bernie.
Then the Dems put their own decaying wretch in, who ignored their own left, which ultimately cost Harris. Now, the DNC is running out of money because even corporate Dems see the “end-of-times” moment.
Democratic Socialists are rising in power because they have actually built it from the ground up and are working for the people. How long can you ignore the people and get away with it?
I read a Stateline article (the owners of the Indiana Capital Chronicle) that discussed how the populist Dems are using the American Legislative Exchange Commission as a model for what the Left. They want to emulate ALEC for its work building a ground-up organization. They spent the whole article bragging about the successes of ALEC’s organic rise and made NOT one mention that the Koch brothers’ billions built the entire organization. There was nothing organic about it.
And this is called access journalism, which has destroyed trust in the media, even the alternative media that came after the collapse of Legacy media.
p.s. You know what is causing the biggest rift in the Republican Party today? Trump, Inc has been collecting all the fundraising efforts for MAGA. This is now causing problems because the right-wing campaigners up for election in November aren’t seeing any of it. Oops! They are actually surprised that Trump is keeping all their money and will spend it himself. #dummies