MAGA's war within: Right-wing purity tests
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Illustration: Maura Kearns/Axios
President Trump's MAGA movement is increasingly at war with itself. The central issue: a purity test over MAGA inclusion.
Why it matters: The MAGA fight, ignited by ideological differences over Israel, pulls on a lot of -isms — nativism, antisemitism, racism, sexism and Trumpism.
- This is a live, all-consuming debate among powerful MAGA stars with megaphones. And it's really important: It's going to determine how powerful a strand those -isms will be in the future of MAGA and therefore Republicanism.
Zoom out: For now, MAGA is being held together by Trump's personality. But open disagreement has broken out over who should, and shouldn't, be accepted under its tent.
- U.S. support for Israel's operations in Gaza inflamed America First diehards and hardened Israel's MAGA allies. The online divisions have raged during the tenuous ceasefire, including tropes over Jews' supposed disproportionate influence in the U.S.
- A leaked group chat from New York State Young Republicans included racist comments and messages from a Trump administration nominee declaring he had a "Nazi streak." The revelation sparked debates over who — if anyone — should be "canceled" from MAGA.
- So a movement rooted in railing against people getting canceled by political correctness is now tied in knots over its own membership.
That dynamic was clear this week when white nationalist Nick Fuentes appeared on Tucker Carlson's podcast for an amiable two-hour interview.
- Critics blasted Carlson for platforming Fuentes, a Holocaust denier who on Carlson's podcast referred to "organized Jewry."
- Allies of Turning Point USA — the group founded by the late Charlie Kirk and embraced by Trump and Vice President Vance — were particularly blunt in hammering Carlson. They noted that Kirk befriended Carlson but sought to distance MAGA from Fuentes.
What they're saying: Within MAGA, battle lines are being drawn over how supportive Trump followers should be, or how skeptical they should be of foreign entanglements.
- Laura Loomer — a Trump loyalist and MAGA enforcer, and vocal Israel supporter — told Axios: "I always said that you had to be a Trump loyalist and America first. But there are people out there that say that I don't belong in MAGA because I'm Jewish."
Fuentes told Axios: "One side is obviously dug in on supporting Israel, and this kind of berserker strategy of attacking anybody that dissents against Israel."
- "And then on the other side you've got Tucker and, of course, people like the groypers, who have also become intractable themselves in response," Fuentes added, referring to his Christian nationalist and white nationalist followers. "I think it's going to get ugly."
The fight has broken out beyond grassroots MAGA, forcing a reckoning in longtime GOP institutions over what rhetoric is tolerable.
- Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said in a video statement in which he defended Carlson: "I disagree with, and even abhor, things that Nick Fuentes says. But canceling him is not the answer either. When we disagree with a person's thoughts and opinions, we challenge those ideas in debate."
- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) shot back: "If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool and that their mission is to combat and defeat 'global Jewry' — and you say nothing — then you are a coward."
- Backlash against Roberts' statement also sparked a reported staff shakeup at Heritage.
Yes, but: A segment of MAGA is trying to get its combatants to lay down their arms.
- Since Kirk's death at the hands of an accused assassin who expressed left-leaning views, the movement has seen itself in an existential battle with the left over the nation's future. For some in MAGA, any internal division is intolerable.
"Conservatives are quick to denounce each other, jump on dogpiles, disavow, attack their allies," The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh wrote after the leak of the Young Republicans group chat.
- "The left will keep up the united front and defend their guys no matter what, while we keep throwing each other to the wolves at every opportunity. Great plan."
What's next: For a movement largely united by one personality, internal debates are unlikely to go away.
- Fights over Israel were bubbling before the war in Gaza — and became particularly acute when Trump continued to back Israel after campaigning on disentangling the U.S. from foreign conflicts.
- Some in the MAGA movement are warning that once Trump leaves office, any would-be successors will have to prove themselves worthy of the MAGA mantle.
- Fuentes told Axios that Vance, the likely GOP frontrunner in 2028, will be a target for Fuentes' followers: "We'll be in Iowa."
