The people posting “MAGA is dead” all over X are undoubtedly premature in their assessment. President Donald Trump has three more years to Make America Great Again, and, as opposed to last time around, many good people in his administration, including an incredible VP, who know what time it is. And, while many things haven’t gone exactly as many of us would have wanted, I also believe he has the capacity to be a unifier and course-correct on the issues he has been weak on and turn his second term into one of the greatest by any president ever.
But the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one, and the constant conservative infighting, along with the whipping that Republican candidates took nationwide in the bellwether off-year elections a few weeks ago, would seem to indicate that there is, indeed, a problem. So, you ask, what are these issues of which you speak, and how should Trump deal with each one in order to reunite the factions that came together to win an improbable victory last year? I’m glad you asked!
Let’s start with the infighting, much of which revolves around foreign policy, military interventions, and what role the United States should have regarding Israel. I mean, no controversy here, right? This should be easy! Well, obviously, it’s far from that, and it threatens to permanently fracture the GOP’s ability to win in the midterms and beyond.
Now I’m not going to wade into the arguments on either side here, except to say that Trump should tread lightly. So far, it seems like he has, although he should consider reining in some in his coalition that is behaving like woke leftists when it comes to people with whom they disagree. Other than condemnations of outright race hatred or calls to violence, I’ve never been a proponent of punching right, and I don’t think Trump should be either. He should know that any calls to ‘disavow’ a particular person are always, always, ALWAYS a trap manufactured by the left, and any response either won’t be accepted or will be taken out of context and used against him (remember Charlottesville and the “very fine people” hoax?). Never apologize to the left, and never disavow a person on the right at the insistence of someone on the left. They are always being disingenuous, and they have no moral authority anyway.
The Israel issue is obviously a sticky wicket, because a significant number of people on the right, especially younger ones, don’t feel the same as the Boomer generation or many pro-Zionist Christian conservatives. Many are more likely to listen to podcasts from Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and, yes, even Nick Fuentes than they are to Dinesh D’Souza, Bill O’Reilly, or Glenn Beck. You may not like what this group is saying, but you cannot doubt that they have influence and that that influence is growing. Should Trump just tell them what’s what and that they’re not welcome in the MAGA coalition if they disagree?
Obviously (or it should be obvious, anyway), that would be a mistake. Sure, it’s completely fine to make the pro-Israel case, and I believe there is a strong one, but Trump and/or his spokespeople should make it with humility without condemning the people on the other side. It’s certainly a tough high-wire act, but I believe it can be done. And, given that he is the only person in a position to do so, Trump should call out the people on the pro-Israel side who insist they ‘won’t ever work with’ people with whom they disagree on that issue. In order to win elections, do we work with people who are pro-choice, or anti-gun, or whatever, if we agree on most other things? Why is this issue different? I understand the ‘actual nazi’ slander, but the vast majority of Israel critics aren’t ‘actual nazis’ or anything close, and it’s dangerous and dumb to insist otherwise. Besides, that’s what the left does.
The president would also be wise to tone down the unnecessarily harsh attacks against Republican Reps. Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene, both of whom, despite disagreeing with Trump on some issues, have perfect or near-perfect liberty scores. Nobody expects to agree with everyone on every issue, but everybody has the right to expect respect from the other side, even if it’s not so common these days. It’s fine to ask for their vote on something and even complain when they don’t give it, but a little decency and tact would go a long way.
On the other issues, Trump should get back to the basics of MAGA. He ran on releasing the Epstein files, and there is absolutely zero reason not to be fully transparent here. Not doing so has cost him dearly on both the right and the left, as it should. He ran on limiting immigration and putting Americans first, so it stands to reason that a large part of the MAGA coalition would be upset at H1-Bs and Chinese students coming in at our invitation to take American jobs and Ivy League spots. He ran on mass deportations and building an actual wall, and so far, neither of those things has happened.
He ran on non-intervention, and what we’ve seen so far has been the opposite of that. Ukraine is still getting billions to carry on the West’s proxy war against Russia. Trump and all of us were fortunate that the Iran situation turned out as it did and didn’t blow up into anything worse. However, engaging in, and threatening to engage in, military adventures overseas, whether that’s Venezuela or Sudan or anywhere else, is going to be met with a ton of pushback from both some on the left and also the non-interventionist right. Given that a core MAGA tenet, as laid out by Trump himself, is non-intervention, the president would be wise to avoid this going forward and not risk getting tied up in something that will be used against Republicans in future elections. In any election, peace is always a winning strategy.
To be fair, not everything has been bad. Closing the border alone is as important an accomplishment as anything else we’d like to see. And Trump’s calls to end the Senate filibuster would, if he can turn those calls into real action, pave the way for a MAGA revival unlike anything this country has ever seen. I’m not ready to take the black pill yet. Three years is a lifetime in politics. There is still hope, and there is still time to turn things around.