The final tally of Republicans’ midterm electoral carnage wasn’t even close to being counted Tuesday when it became the proverbial Night of the Long MAGA Knives.
As Democrats took decisive control of the House and Senate, flipping numerous “safe” Republican seats along the way and even turning Texas — Texas!! — blue by winning every statewide office up for election, President Donald Trump’s heretofore powerful MAGA coalition took to the internet, and its “thought leaders” began lashing out at anyone they could blame for the historic electoral collapse. Often the targets were one another.
Chaya Raichik — the far-right operator of the Libs of TikTok X account — blamed Democrats, who she falsely claimed “imported millions of foreigners, handed them a bunch of free shit, and then registered them to vote,” adding, “If we ever want to win again we need deportations and denaturalizations ramped up on steroids or our country will forever be lost to the communists.”
Laura Loomer — the self-described “pro-white nationalism” influencer known for pushing false, racist conspiracy theories and for being Trump’s McCarthyite loyalty enforcer — spread the blame around too. She said it “would have been best to ban Tik Tok,” called out Christian nationalists (“Where was your God last night?”) and blamed the GOP’s humiliating defeat on America’s racial diversity (“America was always intended to be a majority White country. Not a cesspool for third world minorities”).
Surging fuel prices, exacerbated inflation, financial instability and apparent failure to achieve any of the administration’s oft-shifting goals for the war cannot be hidden from the American public.
“Pizzagate” propagandist Mike Cernovich blamed the post-Charlie Kirk leadership of Turning Point USA, writing on X that the organization needed “a total revamp,” adding that “TPUSA is a youth movement focused on issues impacting young people” and that donors should be told “it’s Charlie’s vision going forward or they can go f––– themselves.”
Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon added some antisemitic analysis, posting to X: “An entire war for Israel. Jews still voted Democrat. Trump betrayed the country for nothing.”
Sean Davis, co-founder and CEO of The Federalist, blamed hawkish neoconservatives like Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin for their advocacy of Trump’s failed and interminable Iran war. “Neocons never take accountability. They just blame everyone else for not neoconning hard enough. They’re just like communists, always claiming that akshully neoconservatism didn’t fail because true neoconservatism has never been tried,” Davis wrote in an X post responding to a Fox News clip from September of Shapiro and Levin arguing that the war wouldn’t negatively affect the GOP in the midterms.
For his part, Levin blamed Tucker Carlson, who he called part of the “woke Reich” — a play on the ridiculous term “woke right,” which itself is just a MAGA euphemism that blames the left for old-school right-wing racism. Calling Carlson a “loathsome creature,” Levin wrote on X that his ex-Fox News colleague “did all he could, with his foreign followers and influencers, to sabotage the president, the GOP, and the mid-term elections,” further impugning the anti-Iran war Carlson as “among the biggest traitors to our country in our history.”
But MAGA warriors didn’t just blame the left and one another. In an interview with CBS News, Katie Miller, the wife of immigration-crackdown architect Stephen Miller, argued that “moms are too busy raising their children and taking care of them to get to the polls.” Miller then admitted she didn’t vote in this election, claiming that “in Virginia, when you vote, you dox your own address,” adding that she prioritized “my safety and security over giving that up.” Aside from the misapplication of the term “dox” — which means publicly revealing personal information as a form of revenge or intimidation — it is preposterous (and more than a little bit funny) for a strident voter ID advocate like Miller to claim that voter registration is a threat to Americans’ safety.
While it’s difficult to trace the collapse of the MAGA coalition to any one ideological disagreement, as MS NOW contributor G. Elliott Morris explained, the demographic collapse of Trump’s 2024 voter coalition — including Latino and younger voters — is the most likely answer to how the GOP’s supposed 2024 vibe shift turned into what Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called an “extinction-level event for Republicans” in just two years.
Ultimately, Vice President JD Vance’s diagnosis for the blue tsunami is almost certainly the most correct one: “The reason we lost is the war.”
The surging fuel prices, exacerbated inflation, financial instability and apparent failure to achieve any of the administration’s oft-shifting goals for the war cannot be hidden from the American public.
Ben Shapiro, who at the onset of the Iran war called Trump “a uniquely testosterone-filled president” and “the most courageous commander-in-chief in modern American history,” laid some responsibility at the president’s feet for failing to “go hard, finish it fast and achieve your ends” in Iran. Whoops.
The crackup of the MAGA coalition’s factions is proving to be as appropriately ugly as it was when they all sang in Trump-worshipping harmony. And just as it was during the “good times,” its adherents are extolling rank bigotry, conspiracy theories and astounding ineptitude in their political analysis.
While this does seem like the irrevocable end of Trump’s cultlike hold on the conservative base, in some ways it is a shame to see it fall apart. After all, these people really do deserve each other.
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