A Trump supporter sporting a red ‘Keep America Great’ hat at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa. Aspects and Angles / Shutterstock
Candace Owens and Erika Kirk have a public feud unfolding online and it is prompting discussions about a fracturing base. However, writing for the New Republic Brynn Tannehill argues there is no collapse coming.
While right-wing figures like Ben Shapiro, Owens, Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes and Milo Yiannopoulos are all fighting and some Republicans are backing away from President Donald Trump, it's more about a power vacuum.
"Some will point to Republican politicians bucking Trump as a reason to believe that the whole circus tent is about to collapse," wrote Tannehill. "Marjorie Taylor Greene is leaving Congress, and it is rumored that Nancy Mace (who seems to be struggling with mental health issues) will soon follow. There are Trump’s health concerns, and the obvious vying by Cabinet members like JD Vance, Pete Hegseth, and Marco Rubio to be seen as the natural successor to the president in the MAGA movement."
Tannehill called it mostly a "power struggle" in the extremist world of far-right politics and there is no sign of demise.
"At the core, MAGA voters remain committed and are not about to switch to Democrats; the main differences among the movement’s influencers are about which hated groups to target and who gets to lead after Trump, not about rejecting the underlying authoritarian, bigoted project," the column said.
All of the people that Tannehill listed agree with each other on the issues. Where they are divided, however, is "when they discuss which groups of people should be loaded into a rocket and fired into the sun."
Some blame "the Jews" while others focus on transgender people and immigrants.
Then there are the Fox News viewers, many of which wouldn't even know who some of the far-right influencers are.
However, Trump's most powerful base of support comes from "low information, low propensity voters. ... People who don’t have accounts on X and couldn’t tell you who we’re about to go to war with, much less find Venezuela on a map. They couldn’t tell you what riders were in the National Defense Authorization Act or even figure out why their medical premiums just went way up."
The media saturation from the White House is so strong, he wrote, that he doubts anything could break through that contradicts the Trump "message."
Where Trump is losing people, however, is on the economy, because there are many among his voters who can't handle the extra costs associated with the Trump tariffs.
Tannehill closes by predicting "Democrats will face a nasty surprise as the low information, low propensity voters once more turn out in droves for the Republican nominee in 2028."
