ABNA24 - Everyone recognizes Donald Trump with MAGA (Make America Great Again) slogan. It is actually an American movement first emerged in 2016 election campaign of Trump. It can be described as populist movement believing that the US as a world power has declined for some reasons, most important of them foreign issues. For example, its voices believe that one of the reasons of the US power decline is the waves of migrants having come to the country, especially the Muslims. Additionally, the movement argues that aimless wars and interventions of the US in West Asia have played as factors undermining the US.
Creating a largely polarized view, this movement has halved the American society into the American and non-American and Christian and Muslim, and communist and capitalist poles, managing to magnetize a massive body of right-wing supporters. Indeed, that does not mean there's homogeneity among the currents close to MAGA; libertarians, Christian conservatives, and neo-conservatives have serious disagreements with one another. But in 2016, they found common ground around Donald Trump.
However, as time passed by and especially since Trump's comeback to power, this coalition sank into substantial tensions, making many believe that, with its modifications, it has transformed into a Trumpists-only movement. War against Iran has pushed this division to a peak, where media figures formerly close to MAGA like Tucker Carlson and Nicholas Joseph Fuentes brazenly held the US and the Zionist lobby responsible for war crimes in Iran.
Grounds of MAGA-Trump gap
MAGA has long since grown disillusioned with Trump. Perhaps the most symbolic case is the Jeffrey Epstein affair. Polls show fewer than half of Republicans are satisfied with how the Trump administration handled the case, and a majority believe the administration has hidden information about Epstein's death and his potential clients, while protecting the powerful figures involved. That has only deepened suspicions within the GOP base that Trump himself is entangled in the Epstein scandal, reshaping his image from "a man of Christian faith" to "a defendant linked to sex crimes against children."
Then there's the economic side of things. Trump's tariff war policy, initially backed by the MAGA base, quickly proved to be nothing but a driver of higher prices and inflation. This came as Trump's signature promise was to boost American workers' economic standing; instead, his tariff policy did the opposite. At the same time, it clashed with traditional Republican beliefs about free trade, fueling frustration among party elites. Last year, as Americans struggled with rising costs, Trump was busy chasing personal wealth through private ventures, raising fresh questions about conflicts of interest. The latest example is announcing a new project in the Maldives with Saudi-linked partners just before the crown prince's visit to Washington.
The White House says those potential conflicts have been "extensively" reviewed. In May, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: "It is frankly ridiculous for anyone to even suggest that President Trump would do anything for personal gain." Still, a Pew Research Center poll found that roughly three in ten Republicans and Republican-leaning independents believe Trump likely abused his office to for personal or inner circle wealth.
Trump and family's glitzy lifestyle has been unpleasant to many voters who voted for him hoping for living conditions improvement. An example causing disapproval was his clearing of $350 million in budget to construct a ballroom at the White House, at a time the government was shut down for spending crisis.
One of Trump's main slogans during the second run for president was "America First." He argued that concentration should be on the US, not other countries', interests. But a look at the countries invaded by the US under Trump shows that this has grown pointless. Trump has already attacked 7 countries while at the same time seeking to settle American economic challenges with investments from Persian Gulf Arab monarchies, something, his supporters argue, has lead to the US becoming independent on foreign actors.
Steve Bannon, a prominent MAGA figure, told Axios that Trump spends an excessive amount of time on the Palestine issue. Soon after, others began raising similar claims about US meddling in Yemen, Syria, and 12-day war against Iran. At that point, MAGA supporters spotted a familiar pattern in all of this: unnecessary US entanglement in West Asia. And they quickly arrived at a single conclusion: the Zionist lobby’s hand in it.
Tucker Carlson is perhaps the best example of this shift among MAGA-aligned figures. The former Fox News host and commentator, who once one of Trump’s staunchest allies, has spent the past year crafting a new narrative: one about Israeli influence infiltrating the American government and shaping White House policy. Through a string of interviews with Palestinian Christians, he’s tried to show Americans that Israel’s problem isn’t just with Muslims — it goes after Christians just as hard. Fuentes, the prominent right-wing podcaster, has taken an even sharper approach, making comments about Jews that have only complicated matters further. In the end, the new narrative from these formerly pro-Trump critics is here: Trump’s “America First” really meant “Israel First.”
Israeli-American war on Iran, the last nail on the coffin of MAGA support to Trump
With the start of new aggression on Iran and the losses of the US and Israeli regime on the battleground, things have begun to get worse for Trump. Trump was quick to respond, saying that the critics of war are "idiots" who nobody cares about them. He attacked Carlson and other former Fox News journalist s, calling them "losers."
Carlson believes the US and Israel were the real losers of the war and accuses Trump of committing war crimes against Iranians. Owens, who had previously claimed that Charlie Kirk, a MAGA activist, was assassinated by Israelis, said mid-war that it was time to send Trump to a nursing home.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former congresswoman whom Trump mentioned in his post, reacted to those remarks on X. She wrote: “President Trump has gone insane as he drags us into a war with Iran, a broken campaign promise.”
"I fought alongside Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones to help get Trump elected," Greene said, adding: “We haven’t changed — Trump has.”
With a twelve-day ceasefire, Trump was scrambling to find a way out of the mess he had made of the war effort. He posted victory several times a day, but the reality was that the ceasefire and the first round of talks only made things worse. Opponents and critics saw the truce as a sign of weakness or defeat. Democrats and other critics called it a “strategic failure." Islamic Republic remains intact, it still has its nuclear and missile programs, and it has nkt lost control of the Strait of Hormuz. Even some conservative analysts warned that Trump may have failed to achieve his objectives and that the ceasefire could give Iran time to rebuild its power.
Within MAGA circles, critical voices were also loud and clear. Some of Trump's former supporters called the ceasefire "a chance for Iran to rearm," viewing it not as a victory but as a mere "delay." Figures like Laura Loomer described the outcome of the talks as "negative for the country," arguing the US had achieved no tangible gains. A segment of MAGA-aligned influencers and podcasters accused Trump of drifting away from the "America First" mantra and, contrary to his promise to end military entanglements, stepping onto the wrong path in foreign policy.
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