January 13, 2025 02:57 PM UTC

After Reaching the Mountaintop, MAGA Begins Inevitable Descent

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• by: Colorado Pols

If it is true, as former President John F. Kennedy once said, that “victory has a thousand fathers,” it looks like the MAGA movement is in for a long paternity battle.

As Aaron Blake explains for The Washington Post:

The MAGA movement has always been a loosely stitched-together confederation led by a man with relatively few ideological convictions. It and he have always been much more animated by Trump the man than any particular set of ideals. And because Trump has proved so malleable, there is a premium on being the one in his ear.

That dynamic is already leading to a rash of infighting over who grabs that ear and guides both Trump and his base.

And the fight over what Trumpism means has gotten quite ugly quite quickly.

While previous battles were mostly between the old Republican establishment and MAGA, the new ones are largely between various sectors of the MAGA movement jostling for influence. [Pols emphasis]

Over the weekend, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon dragged billionaire asshat Elon Musk into Thunderdome, declaring in an interview with an Italian newspaper (because why not) that he will oust Musk from the orbit of President-elect Donald Trump before the new President’s Jan. 20 inauguration. As Vanity Fair reports:

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Bannon said that he’ll get it done before the president-elect takes office in just over a week. “I will get Elon Musk kicked out by the time he’s inaugurated,” Bannon told the outlet. “He won’t have a blue pass with full access to the White House. He’ll be like everyone else.”

Bannon did not respond to an email from Vanity Fair asking how he plans to oust Musk.

The pair have been dueling over what the future of the Make America Great Again strategy ought to look like—and who should be let into that movement’s ranks and the country’s borders. Bannon, and some other staunchly anti-immigration MAGA talking heads like Laura Loomer, are against the highly coveted H-1B visa program—which allows employers to hire foreign workers “in specialty occupations or as fashion models.” Specialty occupations require the visa applicant to have at least a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent, per the Department of Labor. This kind of visa often goes to workers in fields such as math, engineering, and technology.

The H-1B visa program has become ground zero for the MAGA Civil War. Supporters (including Musk and Trump) argue that program is essential for bringing smart people to the United States to do smart things; opponents, meanwhile, see it as an unwanted exception to Trump’s pre-election promises to deport all brown people ASAP.

Further complicating matters, Trump “Border Czar” Tom Hohman made an unpopular admission of his own over the weekend. From CNN:

Homan has privately told Republican lawmakers to temper their expectations for the incoming administration’s initial deportation operation, citing limited resources, according to multiple sources involved in the conversations. [Pols emphasis]

While Trump’s allies have floated measures to detain and deport people residing in the US illegally, the plans largely depend on the resources and funds available to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which historically has had budget shortfalls.

“We are not having a discussion about 20 million (deportations). We are having a discussion about an order, and priority, and expectation,” GOP Rep. Darrell Issa, who was in one of the meetings with Homan, told CNN.

True MAGA believers thought that Trump actually meant what he said before the election when he promised “mass deportations” of undocumented immigrants. What he really meant was, I’ll say whatever you want to hear if you’ll promise to vote for me.

In the meantime, two of the most prominent figures in Trump’s orbit will hopefully engage in hand-to-hand combat in front of a running camera. Bannon told an Italian newspaper that Musk is “truly evil” and that Musk has the maturity of a child. This came about a month after Musk started calling hardcore MAGA-ites “retards” for opposing H-1B programs.

Bannon has a sizable following of nitwits who will back him up in this slapfight, while Musk has more money than any other person on the planet. Working together, rather than fighting, would make sense…but that’s not how things work in MAGAland.

And just think…Trump isn’t even President yet.