The limits of intra-MAGA dissent

We're witnessing the maturation of a political movement, not its decline

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One of the recurring themes of the first months of the second Trump administration has been people looking for glimmers of dissent within the MAGA movement. And there have been plenty. MAGA influencers and politicians have pushed back against Trump on matters as diverse as foreign policy, the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, and military action abroad.

I distinguish this kind of intra-MAGA friendly fire from another strain of criticism of Trump which comes from more establishment-friendly GOP figures like Senators Mitch McConnell and Thom Tillis. The pattern with figures like this is that they usually play ball with Trump while they want to win re-election, and then become critical of him as soon as they decide to resign from Congress. At heart, they have always been marginal to the MAGA movement - more its followers than its leaders. The Republican Party that they represent - or want to represent - no longer exists. They already lost the war to MAGA.

But precisely because MAGA has now established its hegemony over the GOP, the splits within the movement become even more important.

To understand why, consider Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Greene, arguably the most recognizable far right member of Congress in the United States, has represented a slice of rural and exurban Georgia since 2021. Her district is deep red, and like most members of Congress the only remote possibility of her losing it would be if she suffered defeat in a primary. But rather than being content to pocket her paycheck and move through life in quiet obscurity as most similarly-situated members of Congress do, Greene has instead become a major national media presence.

Greene became famous mostly for her outlandish and offensive statements, which include garden-variety MAGA fare like QAnon, Pizzagate and white supremacy mixed with some special preparations of her own, like the idea that powerful Jewish figures use space lasers to cause wildfires. Game recognizes game, and so she quickly established a close relationship with Donald Trump, although even he was a bit leery of her, only endorsing her after she won a contentious primary in 2020.

But if your last impression of MTG (as she is sometimes known) was “Trump-aligned lunatic”, then at least part of that impression is now a bit out of date.

After establishing her impeccable MAGA/Christian nationalist/white supremacist credentials and ensuring that she is unlikely to face a primary challenger from the right, MTG has actually been on a bit of a journey.

In the last Congress - when Joe Biden was still president - she emerged as somewhat of a pragmatist by MAGA standards, working with Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy to try to pass budget legislation which was bitterly opposed by some other conservatives in the House.

Shortly afterwards she got booted from the House Freedom Caucus - a group of far-right Republicans - ostensibly after calling fellow member Lauren Boebert “a little bitch”, but also I suspect for her policy transgressions.

Since Trump was elected, MTG has also not been the unconditional cheerleader that some people might have expected. She has broken with the Trump regime on a number of significant issues, from the Epstein files (she wants them released) to Gaza (she calls it a “genocide”) to welfare cuts (she wants to extend the healthcare subsidies that are at the heart of the current government shutdown).

In one sense, MTG is following a well-worn path. Having emerged as a powerful political force in her own right - one defined by being somewhat of a maverick - she feels free to steer wherever she wants. It’s much harder for Rep. Joe MAGAPack to show independence because he is a mostly nameless entity whose career depends entirely on Trump’s support. Not so for MTG.

On the other hand, it’s important to not get carried away with this intra-MAGA combat or think that it represents some fatal weakness in Trump’s political coalition. Unfortunately, I think it is actually basically irrelevant to the long-term political fortunes of the movement.

First, MTG is very careful not to criticize Trump himself. Like the cautious opponents of dictators and kings everywhere, she directs her dissent at the wicked courtiers that surround him rather than the god-king himself. Here’s how she puts it: “It changes when someone goes into office. Any president — they’re in a cone of information that they’re being provided. That’s a serious factor happening. If I can move President Trump out of there, I think he’s on the right page. I think it’s a matter of who is talking in his ear.”

Secondly, and I think even more importantly, almost none of MTG’s critiques of Trump are critiques of what is actually most deplorable, frightening or destructive about MAGA. And the same goes for other internal dissenters too.

MTG, for instance, is not pushing back against Trump’s weaponization of the justice system against political opponents. She’s not pushing back against his undermining of Congress and the courts. She’s not pushing back against his willingness to deny basic rights protections to everyone from migrants to universities to criminal suspects. She’s not pushing back against him trying to call into question and subvert election results that she doesn’t like. And she’s not questioning his attempt to militarize the streets of major American cities.

In fact, she is cheerleading each and every one of these things.

And this is the limit of intra-MAGA dissent. From the twisted and conspiratorial worldview of MAGA, the Epstein files looks like a huge deal. But MAGA critics of the current regime have almost never touched on what I would consider a core aspect of it and what makes it so problematic. They lack the ability to emerge as a rival center of power that is going to check the regime on anything truly important to the future of constitutional government in the United States. They’re squabbling over the details of how to implement a MAGA agenda, not the basic principles.

What we’re witnessing is the maturation of MAGA as a political movement. As MAGA has become a “normal” part of the American political spectrum, it has developed its own complexity. MAGA is no longer be exactly what Donald Trump says it is because it has now developed enough personalities, factions and media outlets to sustain a debate, even though it is one that mostly revolves around “what Donald Trump would really want if those other people weren’t misinforming him”. But this doesn’t necessarily presage some fundamental split.

It’s a basic rule of politics that disagreements on your own side are always much more painful because people on your own side are supposed to share your principles and values. Leftists have a tendency of letting these disagreements get out of hand and swamp tactical considerations about what it takes to beat the right. Maybe the same thing will happen to MAGA after Trump is gone. But I’m not counting on it, and neither should you.

Thanks for reading America Explained! Paid subscriptions are what keeps this newsletter a going concern, so please upgrade if you’re able to spare a few dollars or euros or whatever (I’m not picky!) a month to support independent journalism and to access all of our posts. And as always, students and educators can get a full subscription for free - just drop me a line.