MAGA’s circular firing squad intensifies

The MAGA movement has captured nearly every lever of power that matters in American life. Conservatives control the Supreme Court and dominate most red-state legislatures, while Donald Trump commands a compliant Republican Congress and maintains a suffocating grip on the GOP’s internal machinery. And yet, as 2025 winds down, the MAGA base is restless. Loyalists are complaining, right-wing influencers are sniping at Cabinet officials and now top Trump appointees are snapping back in public, often with visible contempt for the very people who put them there.

MAGA promised domination. While Trump’s second term has dismantled diversity, equity and inclusion programs with surgical precision and rolled out never-ending culture wars, the president is facing a rebellion of unmet expectations. A coalition that once prided itself on lockstep loyalty is fracturing into factions: the true believers who demand mass arrests and deportations yesterday, the GOP careerists urging patience and “process,” and the right-wing influencers who gin up rage for profit.

To be clear, there is no ideological disagreement in any meaningful sense. Instead there is a sense of rage that right-wing grievance doesn’t automatically deliver results. But with a president far more interested in monetizing power and trimming his abode in gold, there is a dawning realization amongst the MAGA faithful that Trumpism prioritizes spectacle over substance — and they are now speaking up.

Vice President JD Vance found himself on the receiving end of this fury over the weekend when he tried to inflame outrage over the ongoing Minnesota public assistance fraud scandal, which, according to federal prosecutors, involved the theft of “more than $1 billion in taxpayers’ money,” by tying it to his favorite scapegoat: immigration. But the base was unimpressed. Influencers and commenters piled on, asking why, if the situation was so dire, no one had been arrested, deported or denaturalized. They mocked Vance’s post to X as something a podcaster might say, not the vice president of the United States. 

“It brings shame to the FBI / DOJ that nobody thought to do this,” far-right figure Mike Cernovich replied to Vance. “Do people want to be podcasters or to do their official jobs?” Another popular (and anonymous) MAGA account, followed by Vance, responded to the vice president: “When you talk about stuff like this in this kind of helpless way it’s demoralizing. Don’t talk about how bad it sucks, talk about what’s going to be done about it.”

But Vance wasn’t the only Trump official to be tripped up over the Minnesota scandal. Harmeet Dhillon, a longtime Trump loyalist who now serves as assistant attorney general for civil rights, similarly tried to agitate the right-wing rage for online engagement, only to be met with jeers and boos from her own followers. Dhillon, who previously worked on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election through the so-called “Lawyers for Trump” coalition, shared a post about Minnesota elections and called it corrupt. In response, MAGA activists demanded to know why, if the corruption was so obvious, nothing was being done about it. 

Reagan-era conservative alum Hal Furman sniped that it was a shame Dhillon wasn’t in a position to act, so she made a big show of blocking him. She then proceeded to unload on MAGA influencers, accusing them of spreading misinformation for money and insulting them in crude, demeaning terms like “h**s” and “re***ds.” On her official government account, Dhillon dutifully defended her boss, Attorney General Pam Bondi. On her personal account, she melted down, complaining about having to put down her knitting to deal with critics and lashing out at the very base she is supposed to serve.

Want more sharp takes on politics? Sign up for our free newsletter, Standing Room Only, written by Amanda Marcotte, now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

Dhillon’s response is revealing, not only about herself but also about the Trump administration. The very people who screamed that Democrats should be jailed for alleged crimes are suddenly quite sensitive about timelines, statutes of limitations and the complexities of federal law when those same demands are directed at them. That is why criticism from the base cuts to the heart of the MAGA contradiction. The movement demands maximalist outcomes — sweeping arrests, immediate purges and dramatic displays of force — but it has no patience for the legal and administrative realities that make such results difficult. It despises expertise, yet expects flawless execution. 

MAGA was promised a reckoning. As we approach the five-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, MAGA influencers are telling their audiences that time is running out to punish members of the Jan. 6 House select committee for “treason,” a point Dhillon attempted to refute. She insisted that no looming deadline would prevent the Justice Department from pursuing those who “weaponized” Jan. 6. But Pam Bondi’s department has been hollowed out by firings and resignations. For MAGA, that’s proving infuriating because the machine they thought would deliver mass prosecutions is sputtering.

Trump’s advisers have reportedly tried to wave the base’s unrest off as “cyclical” criticism, venting steam. But what’s happening isn’t routine griping. It’s the sound of a movement realizing that raw power doesn’t automatically translate into results, especially when the people in charge are more interested in loyalty tests and culture-war symbolism than in competent administration.

Yet it’s hard to feign sympathy for MAGA supporters who are now disappointed and disillusioned. They weren’t tricked; they were complicit. They chose cruelty over competence, so  it should come as no surprise that their grievances have not resulted in good governance. Trump’s supporters should have known: A movement built to worship a man rather than serve a country will eventually turn on itself.

The post MAGA’s circular firing squad intensifies appeared first on Salon.com.

Source link