The uncomfortable truth is that Trump's base only worships one thing: analysis

President Donald Trump’s supporters, comprising anywhere from the low 30s to the low 40s of the American electorate, will not waver because there is no “Trumpism” — only worship of a personality.

“I would argue it’s more of a pugnacious attitude with a handful of immovable north stars (immigration enforcement, tariffs, disregard for multilateralism) and every other policy decision negotiable — up to and including the federal government taking an ownership stake and some degree of control over private companies,” conservative columnist Jim Geraghty wrote for The Washington Post on Tuesday.

Geraghty pointed to a recent NBC News survey which found a 100 percent approval rating for Trump among self-identified “MAGA Republicans.” A CBS News poll released over the weekend found his numbers at 92 percent of “MAGA Republicans.”

“Back in January, Trump boasted, ‘MAGA is me. MAGA loves everything I do, and I love everything I do, too,’” Geraghty wrote. “Other than a few exceptions such as the release of the Justice Department’s Jeffrey Epstein files, that has been the case.”

At the same time, he pointed out that it is misleading to interpret these statistics as indicating no fracturing of Trump’s base. After all, the term “MAGA Republican” implies support for Trump. Republicans who do not support Trump would most likely not use the “MAGA” label in front of “Republican” in polls.

“That’s why we shouldn’t expect to find many MAGA supporters expressing their opposition to Trump’s decisions on Iran or much else,” Geraghty explained. “When people in this demographic disagree strongly enough, eventually they just stop calling themselves MAGA.” And although many Americans are dissatisfied with Trump, most of his original supporters stick by him because “to the extent ‘Trumpism’ as a philosophy exists, a core tenet appears to be: ‘Always trust the guy in charge, because he knows what he is doing and is playing seven-level chess.’”

Geraghty also observed that “MAGA self-identification increased from 28 percent in November 2024 to 30 percent in the March NBC News poll. We should probably not read too much into that minute increase, because the NBC poll has a margin of error of 3.1 percent, and one year ago, the same pollster found 36 percent of registered voters identified as MAGA. Aligning with MAGA is probably closely correlated to how people feel about the state of the country and their approval of Trump — when they think he’s doing well, they identify as MAGA; when he isn’t, they don’t.”

Some high profile MAGA Republicans have parted ways with Trump over his war with Iran and handling of the release of files related to convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

“Well, it just seems so insane, based on what he ran on. I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right?” podcaster Joe Rogan said earlier in March. “He ran on, ‘No more wars,’ ‘End these stupid, senseless wars,’ and then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it.”

Per the Epstein files, he said, “Who knows what f — — happens with all this Epstein files s — —,” Rogan said. “It just keeps getting crazier and crazier and crazier and deeper and deeper.”

By contrast Mike Cernovich, a conspiracy theorist and one of Trump’s biggest supporters, said in response to the Iran invasion that the United States could avoid blowback because its weapons are so sophisticated they might as well be “alien technology.”

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