Is MAGA Falling Apart? No.

Boy do liberals want to think so. Paul Waldman makes the case here:

The MAGA movement has always been defined by faith and loyalty: Faith in Donald Trump and his power to remake the world, and loyalty toward him in all things, even when his words and actions might lead some to doubt.

Now, however, their faith is being tested and their loyalty is wavering.

In part, this is a rather simple story about failure and weakness. It’s not hard to keep a movement together when it’s succeeding, but when the ship begins taking on water, the crew starts looking for lifeboats to jump into. But even more fundamentally, the events of the last few weeks demonstrate that MAGA was always a more rickety craft than it appeared.

While the fissures have been building for months, last Friday was a particularly disorienting day for the MAGA faithful.

That afternoon, Trump had an Oval Office meeting with Zohran Mamdani, in which rather than calling the New York mayor-elect a vile communist destined to destroy the city of Trump’s birth, the president couldn’t have been friendlier.

“I think you’re going to have hopefully a really great mayor,” Trump said. “The better he does, the happier I am, I will say.”

This sent supporters reeling; Steve Bannon shared a long lament about how “heartbroken” Trump’s base was, and a Fox Business analyst posted “I really think the wheels are coming off the Trump presidency.”

Then that evening, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, as pure a creation of the Trump era as exists in Congress, not only announced that she is leaving the House but excoriated Trump in the process. After she angered him repeatedly in recent weeks, Trump called her a “traitor” and withdrew his endorsement of her. So Greene said she didn’t want to force her constituents to endure the “hateful” primary campaign Trump would wage against her.

I think this is wishcasting. Yes, all of these people personally hate each other. That’s not at all uncommon in these far-right movements when they take power. And no, there isn’t anything really holding this universe together except for Donald Trump. But I’ve heard for a full decade now that Trump can’t win, Trump can’t win again, the overturning of Roe will get women out to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, there are sane Republicans out there who will do the right thing in the end, and now that MAGA is falling apart. It’s always wrong. As long as Donald Trump lives, the far right movement may be chaotic, but any push against him has been extremely tentative and always ends up keeping himself in firm control. Does anyone really care that he goes after John Bolton or meets with Mamdani? Not enough that they are going to do anything about it.

I just wish liberals would stop wishing that what is in fact is not.