Weekly Scroll: Nervous MAGAs

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Trump is starting to lose conservative social media

Something interesting is happening in the wake of Donald Trump’s idiotic tariff policy - maybe for the first time, we’re seeing large scale conservative defections from a major Trump policy.

This actually began before Trump’s tariff announcement. Figures like Joe Rogan and Ann Coulter both broke from the party line to disapprove of how Trump is deporting immigrants seemingly at random to Salvadorean torture camps. /r/Conservative was extremely bothered by reports that Trump is seriously looking into violating the Constitution and running for a third term, and critical of Signalgate. But since the tariffs, the trickle of disapproval is turning into a steady flow.

Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini calls the tariffs ‘insanity’. NatCon commentator Rod Dreher has been critiquing Trump over and over and over. Richard Hanania, after voting for Trump, is now calling him and his entire movement morons. James Lindsay is picking fights inside the MAGA coalition. Professional clown and part time CNBC host Jim Cramer, who told people to vote for Trump if they cared about their paychecks, now says he feels like a sucker. There are plenty of right wing influencers now nervously starting to disagree with the president, but it’s not just influencers - Republicans in Congress are increasingly sounding the alarms and willing to vote against Trump’s tariffs.

Ted Cruz and Chuck Grassley aren’t woke liberals all of the sudden. They’re still going to back Trump on most of the things he’s doing. But this is new for Trump, because tariffs are one of his signature policies. There are two important points I think you should take away from this: