Cult of personality or ideological movement? A 'great test' lies ahead for MAGA

During his war against Iran, U.S. President Donald Trump is not only clashing with Democrats, liberals, progressives and Never Trump conservatives — he is also clashing with some MAGA Republicans who aggressively supported him in the past, including Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and ex-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia). Another far-right critic of the Iran war is former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who views Trump's military operation against Iran as a total betrayal of the "America First" agenda he campaigned on.

Carlson often praised Trump publicly in the past, but reportedly, he said very disparaging things about him behind closed doors — including allegedly saying, in 2021, "I hate him publicly."

The Guardian's David Smith examines Carlson's relationship with Trump in an article published on Wednesday, April 22, stressing that the Iran war was the "breaking point" for the podcaster and former Fox News host.

"He can't live with him and can't live without him," Smith explains. "But finally, the conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson seems to have made up his mind about Donald Trump. Their up-and-down marriage of political convenience is heading for the divorce court. On Tuesday, Carlson admitted that he will be 'tormented' for a long time by his support for Trump in the 2024 U.S. presidential election — 'and I want to say I'm sorry for misleading people.' What he did not say is whether this presages his own run for president in 2028."

Carlson and Trump's clash over the Iran war, according to Smith, "was the latest — and perhaps final — twist in a long and tortured relationship."

"Back in 1999, when Trump was potentially running for president on a Reform Party ticket, Carlson said he was 'the single most repulsive person on the planet,'" Smith reports. "In 2016, he reportedly told an acquaintance that the Republican frontrunner was 'not evil' but 'mentally ill'…. He told the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee that Trump is 'a wonderful person.'"

Jason Zengerle, author the 2024 book, "Hated By All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind," argues that Carlson considers non-invention a core principle of MAGA.

Zengerle told The Guardian, "He's leaving Trump because he feels that Trump has not stayed true to the ideology he was ascribing to him. People like Tucker and Steve Bannon believe that the MAGA movement is an ideological movement and that there are principles to it that MAGA voters subscribe to independent of their love of Donald Trump. This is a great test of that. Is MAGA a cult of personality, or is it actually an ideological movement? I think it's a cult of personality: most people who are MAGA supporters will support whatever Donald Trump does. People like Bannon and Tucker think that there is an ideology there that these people are supporting, and it's not just Trump. And we're about to find out."

When The Guardian asked Zengerle how likely it is that Carlson will run for president in 2028, he responded, "It's a lot more likely than it was before."

Zengerle said of Carlson, "He's not really a media figure at this point. He's a movement leader. He thinks he's leading a political movement, and he thinks that movement has been betrayed by Donald Trump. And so, he's trying to move it in a different direction away from Trump while keeping it consistent with his ideological beliefs. He's positioning himself and his movement to pick up the pieces of what he thinks has been broken by Trump, positioning himself as the true heir — this person who has stayed true while everybody else has betrayed the faith."

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