MAGA media sites fizzle as infighting splinters messaging

Zoom in: Over the past two years, monthly app downloads to several of the most popular conservative media apps, including Truth Social and Newsmax, have declined, per Apptopia.

• Several of those apps, including Daily Wire and The Blaze, have seen app downloads decline in line with website traffic decreases, per Similarweb data pulled by Howard Polskin, author of the conservative media analysis blog TheRighting.
• Every conservative media site monitored by TheRighting saw web traffic decreases in November compared to the year prior, except Truth Social, which grew 5%.

To be fair, some of those traffic declines are consistent with the broader news ecosystem, which has struggled to reach pandemic levels of engagement.

• Market challenges, like the decline of link referrals from social media sites, are impacting all publishers, not just conservative sites.

Reality check: The MAGA media universe, unlike mainstream media that it looks to challenge, is made up of many smaller outlets and individuals that — with the exception of Fox News — don't have the same resources to invest in new technology and growth strategies.

• For years leading up to President Trump's second term, that scrappiness proved helpful in collectively extending the movement's unified reach on social media.
• But today, it's become clear that the constellation of disparate voices, preaching conflicting messages, aren't as powerful as they once were in uniting the party.
• That weakness became especially clear last year when a new feature on X revealed that many purported MAGA fans with thousands of followers are seemingly being run from outside the U.S.

Between the lines: The explosion of right-wing social discourse apps following the Jan. 6 Capitol siege five years ago also seems to have faded.

• There was not enough consistent download data to be able to chart the growth of apps like Gettr and Parler, per Apptopia.
• Parler, which has changed hands several times over the past few years, has initiated a private placement to raise up to $50 million for a possible IPO late this year or early next, it says.

Zoom out: Besides Fox News, which is part of Fox Corp., publicly traded MAGA media stocks have struggled to gain the attention of Wall Street investors.

• Shares in Rumble have declined 58% since their all-time highs in December 2024, when the company announced a $775 million investment from the financial tech firm Tether.
• Shares in Truth Social parent Trump Media & Technology Group are down 61% over the past year.

Of note: App and traffic data, while helpful in showing some of the challenges conservative publishers face growing their audiences in the second Trump era, don't always paint a full picture.

• Some right-wing personalities are finding success growing their reach and with podcasts and on social media.
• Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson have seen notable gains over the past year, per TheRighting, as have some of the Daily Wire podcasts.
• "The Charlie Kirk Show" saw huge gains following the assassination of Charlie Kirk in September.
• Other conservative podcasters, including Bill O'Reilly, Mark Levin and Jordan Peterson, saw little to no growth between the second and third quarters of 2025.

The big picture: Over the past year, infighting between major right-wing media personalities over issues like the Israel-Gaza war, the release of the Epstein files, hate speech and military engagement in Venezuela has fractured the MAGA media coalition, making it challenging for a unified message to reach all corners of the party.

The bottom line: Without a unified message, the many smaller, disparate voices within the movement are struggling to collectively grow.