From conservative personalities taking stunning swipes at each other at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest conference to a mass exodus from the Heritage Foundation, the ideological civil war over the future of the post-Trump right has shifted into a new stage that will set the tone for 2026.
There has long been grumbling and vocal discontent from traditional conservatives about figures and institutions that have embraced fringe figures or "New Right" populism. Now, that's escalated into litmus tests over engaging with those who espouse antisemitism and conspiracy theories — as well as structural changes in conservative institutions.
A large portion of the right does not want to have that debate. They are frustrated that the old-guard, traditional conservative wing that the MAGA movement largely repudiated is the faction defining the terms of debate. They are vehemently opposed to "cancel culture" and casting out ideological allies.
The infighting, they worry, is demoralizing the fragile President Trump coalition and harming Republican chances of keeping control of Washington in the midterms.
Those dynamics reached a new apex over the past week, with the traditionalist dissenters continuing to force the debate and making clear they will not shut up and play nice.
Ben Shapiro, as the first speaker after Charlie Kirk's widow Erika Kirk at AmericaFest, kicked off a highly public airing of grievances — calling out "charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty." He named not only Candace Owens, who has spread conspiracy theories about Kirk's killing, but also speakers who followed him, including Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Steve Bannon.
"The people who refused to condemn Candace's truly vicious attacks — and some of them are speaking here tonight — are guilty of cowardice," Shapiro said. He referenced Carlson's October interview with antisemetic commentator Nick Fuentes saying those who host "a Hitler apologist, Nazi-loving" commentator like Fuentes "ought to own it."
Carlson, Kelly and Bannon all later responded to Shapiro on the main stage. Carlson said he laughed at Shapiro making "calls to deplatform at a Charlie Kirk event." Bannon said that Shapiro "is like a cancer, and a cancer that spreads."
Kelly, who helped set up a meeting between Owens and Erika Kirk last week, said she no longer considers Shapiro a friend and said that while she does not agree with Owens's theories about Israel and more, she didn't call her out for asking questions "because I favored her asking them."
Meanwhile, the Heritage Foundation faced a major staff and board member exodus that showcased not only infighting between podcast personalities but how major money and structural shifts are changing the institutional structures on the right.
Heritage is another organization that has been at the center of the conservative civil war, stemming partly from its President Kevin Roberts in October defending Carlson for interviewing Fuentes, which Roberts later apologized for.
But staff discontent had been growing long before that issue as Roberts led Heritage in a Trumpier and more populist direction, embracing more noninterventionist foreign policy and warming up to tariffs that it previously opposed.
First, two more board members resigned last week — Shane McCullar and Abby Spencer Moffat, whose family had supported Heritage for decades and made the largest pledge to the organization in its history. McCullar said the board was "unwilling to confront the lapses in judgment that have harmed its credibility," and Moffat said the organization had drifted "from the principles that once defined its leadership." A third board member, Robert P. George, had resigned from Heritage a month prior.
Then, nearly all of the staff from Heritage's legal and economic centers abruptly departed the think tank, Roberts told staff in a late Sunday email obtained by The Hill. Heritage said two of the staffers were fired for "conduct inconsistent with Heritage's mission and standards," mentioning "fiduciary duty and intellectual property removal."
On Monday, Advancing American Freedom (AAF), the think tank founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, announced it was absorbing more than a dozen staff members who were decamping from Heritage — including three directors.
The backstory shows how this is a major structural shift in the conservative movement — and that money talks just as much as those snarky, swipe-y podcasters.
Talks to absorb the Meese legal center team started several weeks ago, AAF President Tim Chapman said. The AAF board approved the plans on the condition it raised at least 60 percent of a $15 million fundraising goal, enough to fund the new project for $5 million a year for three years. After approaching a small number of donors, the AAF raised $12 million in just two weeks.
With the additions, the 4-year-old think tank is doubling in size and is already working to expand its downtown Washington, D.C., office space. More staff additions are expected. (More on all that in my story from Monday: Heritage Foundation staffers decamp for Pence-founded think tank in latest exodus)
Chapman said the changes reflect "the reorganizing of the right" — and that the personality clashes at AmericaFest, while they were based on somewhat different disputes over ideological purity and who is part of the conservative movement, are all showing the same thing.
"I think that there's a core of the conservative movement that is still engaged in principled conservatism and still wants to fight for that stuff," Chapman said.
"The advantage that we have is that the truth is on our side," Chapman said. "Facts are really stubborn things, and there's a lot of noise and a lot of chaos around what you see online. But when a guy like Ben Shapiro stands up and just tells it straight and it's completely irrefutable, that kind of stands on its own. We're going to do similar things here."
"When it comes to public policy analysis, our analysis will be rigorous, it will be fact-based, it will be true, and people can disagree with it as a political matter, but they won't be able to disagree with it as a factual matter," Chapman said.
Trump allies, meanwhile, dismissed the shifts.
"Congrats to @Heritage ! The clowns are leaving their organization," posted MAGA strategist Alex Bruesewitz. "These departures will also open jobs up for patriots who believe in America First!"
Donald Trump Jr. said in a post on social platform X: "I think it's great news for Heritage that a bunch of Trump-hating RINOs are leaving. Anyone who would want to go work for Mike Pence's globalist never-Trump organization isn't MAGA and definitely doesn't put America First!"
The midterm elections — and the Republican primaries before it — will be not only a major test of Trump's popularity and power in Washington, but also of which ideological factions will keep or gain dominance heading into 2028 and a post-Trump landscape.
Will the MAGA coalition endure, or will the traditionalists see a resurgence? I'll be in your inbox every week following all of it with you in the new year.
Further reading ... Audrey Fahlberg in National Review with the scoop on Heritage departures … Wall Street Journal: Top Heritage Officials Flee to Mike Pence's Nonprofit as Think Tank Fractures … Politico: MAGA infighting erupts at Turning Point USA Conference … New York Times: Turning Point's Annual Gathering Turns Into a Gripefest
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