Trump is The Wrecking Ball and The Glue
Fractured but Faithful: How Trump’s Followers Stay Loyal Despite the Chaos
Good morning! —
I wanted to share my latest column for the LA Times, which looks at the GOP’s internal divisions over Iran.
While I wrote it last week and some developments have shifted, the core argument remains highly relevant.
Please enjoy it below!
Cracks in the Trump coalition? They won't matter
Donald Trump’s coalition has always been a Frankenstein’s monster — stitched together from parts that were never meant to coexist.
Consider the contradictions: fast-food fanatics hanging out with juice-cleanse truthers chanting “Make America Healthy Again” between ivermectin doses, immigration hardliners mixing with business elites who are “tough on the border” until they need someone to clean their toilets or pick their strawberries, and hawkish interventionists spooning with America Firsters.
Dogs and cats living together — mass hysteria — you know the bit.
Navigating these differences was always going to be tricky. But in recent days — particularly following Israel’s bombing of Iran, an operation widely believed to have been greenlit by Trump — the tension has reached new highs.
Signs of strain were already emerging earlier this year. We got early hints of discord during the “Liberation Day” tariff fiasco — where Trump declared an “emergency” and imposed steep tariffs, only to suspend them after they riled markets and spooked his business-friendly backers.
The tariff blunder was a harbinger of things to come. But it was the House’s passage of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” — a budgetary monstrosity that self-respecting Freedom Caucus deficit hawks should’ve torched on principle — that truly exposed the rift.
Enter Elon Musk, the billionaire tech bro and MAGA ally, who publicly trashed both the bill and Trump in a flurry of posts. He even referenced Trump’s name reportedly appearing in Jeffrey Epstein’s files — a claim that, though unverified, was tantamount to “going nuclear.”
But before there was enough time to say “Republican civil war,” Musk deleted his mean tweets, adding to the evidence that this is still Trump’s party; that modern Republicans view deficits the way the rest of us view library late fees — technically real, but nothing to lose sleep over; and that ketamine is a hell of a drug.
The next internecine squabble was over immigration. Trump proudly ran on rounding ’em all up. Mass deportations! Load up the buses! But then it turned out that his rich buddies in Big Ag and Big Hospitality weren’t so keen on losing some of their best employees.
So Trump floated a carve out to protect some “very good, long time workers” in those particular industries.
It even started to look like some exemptions were coming — until his Department of Homeland Security said “no mas.” (The raids will presumably continue until the next time a farmer or hotelier complains to Trump in a meeting.)
But the real fissure involves some prominent America First non-interventionists who thought Trump was elected to end the “forever wars.”
In case you missed it, Israel has been going after Iran’s nuclear capabilities with the same gusto that Trump aide Stephen Miller applies to deporting Guatemalan landscapers, and Trump is all in, calling for an “unconditional surrender” of the Iranian regime (and then deploying bombs on Saturday).
This didn’t sit well with everyone in the MAGA coalition.
“I think we’re going to see the end of American empire,” warned Tucker Carlson on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. “But it’s also going to end, I believe, Trump’s presidency — effectively end it — and so that’s why I’m saying this.”
And Carlson (co-founder of the Daily Caller, where I worked) didn’t stop there. “The real divide isn’t between people who support Israel and those who support Iran or the Palestinians,” he tweeted. “It’s between warmongers and peacemakers.”
Then he named names, alleging that Fox’s Sean Hannity, radio firebrand Mark Levin, media titan Rupert Murdoch and billionaire Trump donors Ike Perlmutter and Miriam Adelson were among the warmongers.
Trump hit back, calling Tucker “kooky” and repeating his new mantra: “IRAN CAN NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON.”
It’s tempting to see this spat as the beginning of a schism — a break that might finally yield a coherent Trump Doctrine, at least, as it pertains to foreign policy (possibly returning the GOP to a more Reaganite or internationalist party). But that misunderstands the nature of Trump and his coalition.
These coalitional disagreements over public policy are real and important. But they mostly exist at the elite level. The actual Trump voter base? They care about only one thing: Donald Trump.
And Trump resists ideological straitjackets.
If Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu rubs him the wrong way next week (as he did by congratulating Joe Biden in 2020), or if Israel’s military campaign starts slipping in the polls, Trump could flip faster than a gymnast on Red Bull.
There is no coherent philosophy. No durable ideology. What we’re watching is a guy making it up as he goes along — often basing decisions on his “gut” or the opinion of the last guy who bent his ear.
So if you’re looking for a Trump Doctrine to explain it all — keep looking. There isn’t one.
There’s only Trump.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Launch Your Media Platform: Meet Me in Arlington This Thursday!
If you’ve a center-right person who has ever thought about launching a Substack newsletter, YouTube channel, or audio podcast — even just a little — I highly recommend attending a “Content Creator Bootcamp” I’m helping run this Thursday at The Leadership Institute in Arlington, Virginia.
It’s just $10(!) and features insights from me, RealClearPolitics’ Carl Cannon, and 24Sight News founder Tom LoBianco.
I hope to see you there!
There's a really good account on X called @Thiss_Youu . He screenshots two posts from talking heads, politicians etc that are absolute opposites of what was previously said. Interesting.