Following the GOP’s disastrous midterm performance, a growing number of Republicans are trying to get rid of Donald Trump, whom they blame for their electoral losses. With the former president becoming more irrelevant by the day, a big fight is brewing among Trump’s most fervent disciples who are now vying to take over the MAGA movement, according to conservative writer Matt Lewis.
In his column for The Daily Beast, Lewis writes that after the string of losses among Trump’s hand-picked candidates in the 2022 midterms elections, his “minions” have the “knives out” for each other as things around their leader fall apart.
Lewis wrote that things turned “downright nasty” after Herschel Walker’s bid for a U.S. Senate seat met the same fate as other Trump picks.
“The knives were already out, but this could get downright nasty” among Trump supporters, Lewis reported.
Don't Miss
“Some of these people want to replace Trump as the GOP standard-bearer. Others just want to supplant him as the Twitter troll-in-chief. It hardly matters,” he wrote. “The ex-president is also fighting a two-front war against people who no longer fear him. For example, right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos has claimed he set up the notorious Mar-a-Lago dinner with Kanye and white supremacist Nick Fuentes ‘to make Trump’s life miserable.'”
“After seizing power, a strongman often (ruthlessly) imposes order and peace at home. For most of the last few years, Trump has been a unifying force in the GOP and, more broadly, on the right (not counting the small percentage of Republicans who became Never Trumpers and were purged). But what happens when a strongman starts to appear vulnerable? Chaos ensues. People rise up and/or the power vacuum is filled by local warlords,” Lewis noted.
The conservative writer points out the growing rift between Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Marjorie Talor Greene (R-GA) as they try to elevate their respective positions in the party.
“Consider the split between bosom buddies Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene over whether to support Kevin McCarthy for Speaker of the House. ‘Whatever Kevin has promised Marjorie Taylor Greene,’ Gaetz said in November, ‘I guarantee you this: at the first opportunity, he will zap her faster than you can say Jewish space laser,” Lewis reported.
“I’m not saying there wasn’t any right-on-right drama during the Trump years; there was. But what we are seeing now is the result of a nascent power vacuum where players are competing for turf,” he explained. “And it’s a sure sign that Trump’s shining star is losing its luster. Think of it this way: If you’re into drama and weird shit, you don’t need Trump any more. There is a younger and (in some cases) weirder crop of right-wingers who are way more interesting than some old guy holed up in a Florida mansion.”
Read the full report at The Daily Beast.
