The fight to define what the political right will stand for after President Trump leaves office is revving up, not even a year into his second term.
Signs of what were once behind-the-scenes rifts are breaking into public view, from the recent turbulence at the Heritage Foundation to Trump's breakup with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
All of the squabbling is in preparation for Republicans deciding their presidential candidate in 2028, which ideas that nominee will represent, and the political forces to which that person will have to respond.
Will Republicans chose double-digit poll leader Vice President Vance as the MAGA heir apparent — or someone else with more traditional bona fides, like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), whose interest was floated in a Monday Axios story? (This, of course, assumes populist former Trump adviser Steve Bannon's teases of a third Trump term never materialize.)
A large part of what I write in The Movement every week is about that very dynamic, but it is within the last month that the battle lines are being clearly drawn and political sands are shifting.
This month's off-year elections in which Republicans took a pummeling in statewide races in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere — losing by far more than anticipated — have been a wake-up call to Republicans that without Trump on the ballot to motivate voters, they may have to figure out a new political coalition.
"There was sort of a vibe shift on the right where it became completely apparent to everybody that Trump, who's a dominating figure on the right, was not going to be here forever," said Tim Chapman, president of the Advancing American Freedom think tank founded by former Vice President Mike Pence. "A lot of the policy objectives that we're pursuing right now, many of them come from Trump personally. And so there's a question as to what animates the next political coalition."
Tucker Carlson's interview with antisemitic commentator Nick Fuentes last month was a major catalyst for the civil war on the right heating up, too. It inflamed debates about antisemitism and about whether U.S. support for Israel is an essential part of conservatism. And Carlson himself became a litmus test on the right, with figures like Ben Shapiro and Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) saying he should not be welcome, given his treatment of Fuentes.
Heritage for weeks has been wrestling with the fallout from President Kevin Roberts initially defending Carlson and then facing uproar from allies and staff, even after he apologized for his initial video. But even before the Carlson kerfuffle, figures in the conservative movement had been dismayed at how Roberts steered the prominent conservative think tank on economics and foreign policy, in a direction that was noninterventionist and more open to tariffs. (More on the latest at Heritage later.)
Those in the traditional conservative Reaganite wing think that their side is having a surge of energy. Their hopes are high that the three-legged stool of social conservatism, free-market economics and fiscal restraint, and national security will once again be at the center of the movement.
Chapman told me that his organization has seen "a noticeable uptick in interest from potential supporters over the last quarter."
"I view that as a sign that a lot of conservatives, who have very much for very good reasons, wanted to give the Trump administration the benefit of the doubt are now 10 months in and are very concerned about what they're seeing, especially on the economic policy," Chapman said.
That traditional wing is at odds with the ideological forces that have surged under Trump: populists who embrace broad-based tariffs; immigration restrictionists; noninterventionists; and portions of the "New Right" who embrace "postliberal" political theories that devalue individualism.
The high-level intellectual debate was summed up well in a brief post on social platform X last week from Harvard constitutional law professor Adrian Vermeule, author of "Common Good Constitutionalism." In a response to the traditionalists remarking that William F. Buckley, a midcentury architect of the conservative movement, would have supported movement gatekeeping, Vermeule said: "I just don't care what William F. Buckley would have thought."
And when it comes to electoral prospects, those more MAGA types are widely dismissing the prospect of Cruz's criticism of Carlson being fodder for a 2028 bid going up against Vance. Commentator and activist Jack Posobiec, influencer Alex Lorusso, and The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis all responded to Cruz being floated for 2028 by noting that Trump on Sunday evening defended Carlson for interviewing Fuentes.
But even some MAGA faithful are facing their own reckoning, disappointed with Trump's defense of H-1B visas and his inviting foreign students to study in the U.S., as my colleague Julia Manchester reported. Natalie Winters, who co-hosts Bannon's "War Room" show, called the remarks "insulting to MAGA's intelligence."
While Trump has asserted that he is the arbiter of the "Make America Great Again" movement he helped create — "I know what MAGA wants better than anybody else, and MAGA wants to see our country thrive," he told Fox News host Laura Ingraham — his one-time loyalists are forging their own definitions.
Trump's move to unendorse Greene on Friday came after she repeatedly accused the president of betraying his "America First" message, and she has sought to define an "America Only" lane, particularly on foreign policy. Greene in many ways has put herself on an island among Republicans, but even if she is not necessarily leading a political movement, the firebrand congresswoman is clearly tapping into a motivating force for a type of GOP voter.
So, can MAGA turn into an ideology defined by something more than Trump himself, or will his looming exit from the national stage make way for a resurgence of traditional conservatism as the Republican Party's guiding force?
I'll be coming to your inbox every Tuesday morning, tracking that progress.
No comments:
Post a Comment