A MAGA Crack-up? by David Corn

[justaprogressive]

Often political movements end up as circular firing squads, especially when there’s a competition for leadership. The same can be true for cults. With Trump’s misnamed Make America Great Again cult movement, the firing squad is shaped more like a Möbius strip. In the past year or so, MAGA World has been racked with a series of cross-cutting feuds, with incoming and outgoing fire ricocheting across the Trumpian landscape in all directions, causing chaos and confusion, as multiple conspiracy theories clash and vitriolic accusations pile up. An outsider cannot keep track of the infighting without a program or a wire diagram that would make Carrie Mathison proud.

You may have caught particular episodes in this sweeping saga. One of the main ones occurred when Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and commentator Tucker Carlson got into a dust-up last year over Israel, with Carlson, an America First anti-interventionist, decrying Cruz for being a pro-Israel warmonger and Cruz slamming Carlson for hosting on his show Nick Fuentes, the antisemitic white nationalist and Hitler fanboy. Cruz accused Carlson of being “complicit in…evil” for platforming Fuentes. This tiff led to a civil war inside the influential Heritage Foundation between those who backed Carlson (including its president) and those who found his association with Fuentes despicable.

This row reflected a deepening fault line among Trump followers between isolationists and hawks, with Israel as the fulcrum and antisemitism (actual or false charges of) imbuing the debate. With this baseline split, it was no surprise that the Iran war has led to more MAGA-on-MAGA catfighting. Fox News loudmouths Sean Hannity, Brian Kilmeade, and Mark Levin, along with conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, have been cheerleaders for Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s war against Tehran, with Carlson and Megyn Kelly blaming Israel for dragging Trump and the United States into this conflict.

Kelly complained the war was sold to the American public by “Israel firsters, like Mark Levin.” He retorted by calling Kelly an “emotionally unhinged, lewd and petulant wreck.” Then it got nasty. Kelly asserted that Levin had a small penis. He said she was a slut. I’m not making this up:

Look at Deep Throat. Oh the stories I hear. Filthy mouth. https://t.co/RmSvFNM0rM

— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) March 28, 2026

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/04/maga-trump-crack-up-candace-owens-charlie-kirk-erika-kirk-tucker-carlson-megyn-kelly-joe-kent-kash-patel/

[dalton99a]

1. .

[usonian]

2. Sounds familiar.