Trump stoking MAGA civil war at the worst possible time: analysis

Donald Trump's war with Iran appears to be "accelerating" a major crack-up of the MAGA movement, and according to a new analysis from Slate, this "breaking point" could arrive at the worst possible time for the Republican Party.

Writing for Slate on Thursday, staff reporter Molly Olmstead observed that Trump's joint military assault on Iran alongside Israel is proving extremely divisive among leading figures in the MAGA and far-right political movements. Based on the vitriol being exchanged between the likes of Laura Loomer and Marjorie Taylor Greene, Olmstead argued that the movement is no longer "pretending to be one unified coalition under Trump anymore."

"This b—— is celebrating the death of American military members and thanking their families for their blood sacrifice,” Greene wrote of Loomer in a post to social media Sunday. “But this is who Trump takes late night calls from and laps up her praise and worship. … And now Americans are once again coming home in flag draped coffins from another stupid pointless foreign war for foreign regime change on behalf of Israel.”

"How much money are you making off of Muslims?" Loomer asked in response.

"There’s something more remarkable here than just a spat between two influential conservative women," Olmstead wrote. "Their fight is just one in a sprawling ideological conflict playing out on social media, where different right-wing voices are, more than ever in recent memory, breaking with one another in open hostility. Pro-war and anti-war conservatives have been accusing each other of bigotry, idiocy, corruption, hidden ethno-religious agendas, and anti-Americanism. The conservative movement isn’t pretending to be one unified coalition under Trump anymore."

She continued: "Instead, the strikes on Iran have caused the fractures within the alliance to expand to the point where it will be difficult, if not impossible, to reclose them — a major problem as Trump tries to keep his political coalition together."

Olmstead highlighted similar infighting going on between prominent far-right figures like Ben Shapiro, Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, with new divisions often breaking down between pro-Israel conservatives and those opposed to new overseas military conflicts.

Olmstead further noted that this acceleration of divisions within the MAGA movement is happening at one of the worst possible times for the broader GOP, as it will make it difficult or outright impossible for the party to convey a united front in November's midterm elections. Given that Trump's unpopular agenda was already predicted to hand Democrats substantial victories in the House and Senate, bitterly divided MAGA figureheads risk driving even more voters away from candidates that support Trump's agenda.

"Early polling has shown that these strikes aren’t popular among Republicans," Olmstead concluded. "We’re in a midterm year, as some right-wing commentators have noted with alarm. The GOP needs its influencers to reassure the MAGA faithful, rather than stoke dissent. There’s a long history of predicting voters will turn on Trump, and it seldom sticks. It’s possible that the MAGA faithful—both high-profile influencers and rank-and-file voters—will come home to Trump soon. But at this moment, the ties that bind Trump to some of his most steadfast supporters are stretched more thin than ever. And that in itself makes this a remarkable moment."