In the latest episode of the soap opera that passes for politics in the United States, President Donald Trump has dramatically split with Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a former ally and a notorious wearer of the MAGA hat.
Writing on his Truth Social platform on Friday, Trump denounced his fellow Republican as “wacky” and “Far Left”, claiming that he did not have time to deal with her alleged barrage of phone calls: “I can’t take a ranting Lunatic’s call every day.”
As The New York Times noted, Trump had previously “stood by” Greene when she was criticised “for voicing conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 attacks, school shootings and wildfires started by space lasers”.
Anyway, nothing “Lunatic” about any of that.
Greene denies having called the president, saying instead that she had texted him to suggest that he cease endeavouring to thwart the full release of the so-called Epstein files pertaining to the late paedophile and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, which may implicate Trump.
The US House of Representatives is set to vote this week on the matter – and Greene is not the only Republican to have broken ranks. Several other House Republicans have also defied Trump on the Epstein front, including Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Lauren Boebert of Colorado.
In a typical about-face, Trump has now spontaneously reversed his position on the Epstein files, posting on Truth Social late on Sunday: “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide.”
And yet the Epstein files are hardly the only issue that raises the question of whether MAGA might not be headed for some sort of self-combustion.
As Trump recently reminded Americans, “Don’t forget, MAGA was my idea. MAGA was nobody else’s idea.”
And so it’s only logical that folks would associate the distinct failure to “make America great again” with the idea man himself.
Outright propaganda can only go so far – and people tend to notice when they don’t have enough money to put food on the table in spite of upbeat presidential pronouncements regarding the state of the economy.
Even Trump has apparently realised, to some extent, that he stands to further alienate his base by insisting on nonsensical tariffs and other punitive financial measures. As a nonsolution, the government will now lower tariffs on coffee and bananas while the president muses over potential $2,000 tariff rebate cheques and 50-year mortgages.
A November 14 White House news release blamed the Democrats for the country’s “economic mess” but assured citizens that “grocery prices and housing prices are trending in the right direction” with prices “for everyday staples” such as ice cream seeing “declines”.
The news release ended on the inspiring note: “We’re making progress – and the best is yet to come.”
In addition to the cost-of-living crisis, another source of rising discontent among Republicans is US support for Israel. In July, Greene became the first Republican lawmaker to call the genocide in the Gaza Strip by name, condemning the “starvation” of Palestinians.
To be sure, US aid to Israel is not just a Republican thing; Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden was more than happy to fling tens of billions of dollars at the genocidal state as it went about starving and otherwise annihilating civilians in Gaza.
The Trump administration, however, has added a slight twist to business as usual by not only backing Israel to the hilt but also simultaneously threatening to starve poor Americans at home by withholding essential food assistance.
But, hey, at least the price of ice cream is “declining”.
Last week, two days before his official breakup with Greene, Trump took to Truth Social to warn that “only a very bad, or stupid Republican would fall into” the Democratic “trap” of the “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax”, allegedly concocted purely to detract attention from the Democrats’ wide-ranging transgressions.
But it seems that an ever-greater number of MAGA adherents may be at risk of descending into badness and stupidity as Trump reveals himself to be maybe not the most qualified person to “drain the swamp in Washington, DC” – one of the president’s perennial promises to do away with corruption and other traditional political vices.
Indeed, Trump’s apoplectic fits over the possible release of details regarding Epstein – ie, someone who was very much entrenched in said “swamp” – do not bode well in terms of drainage prospects.
Then again, the fact that Americans re-elected a nepotistic billionaire and convicted criminal to head the country suggests that the swamp probably isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
On a micro level, the intra-MAGA soap opera may provide some fleeting gratification for spectators. But it’s not like the drama sets the stage for any substantive improvement to the political panorama.
And while opposing Trump is, objectively speaking, a noble aim, we don’t really need any more people who think space lasers cause wildfires and compare pandemic safety measures to the Holocaust. Nor, for that matter, do we need any more genocide-enabling Democrats, who at the end of the day are just as committed as Republicans to maintaining a corrupt plutocracy.
Blind and unquestioning support for the president may be eroding among his MAGA base. But rest assured that the swamp is here to stay.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
