Maggie Habermann wrote that the first crack in MAGA’s blind support of Trump came with Trump’s handling of the Epstein files.
Maggie Haberman reveals the moment MAGA broke with Trump
That makes sense to me. It also follows a distinct Trump pattern of making promises which he then breaks. Reading different sits online, the Epstein files were he first crack, but there were four others. In each case, a MAGA crack came because what Trump promised and what happened after he took office in his second term were far apart.
For the TL/DR crowd, the five cracks in MAGA support of Trump which I see right now:
- 1. Epstein files
- 2. Lower prices
- 3. Immigration policies
- 4. No new wars
- 5. Helping farmers
No, I’m not an expert on any of these things. Just a concerned and aging American citizen. Let me unpack my thinking.
When running for re-election in 2024, Trump picked up that MAGAzens really cared about the Epstein files. MAGAzens spent a lot of energy building scenarios about the damaging information the Epstein files had on Democrats and ‘elites’, two primary MAGA targets. When Trump was asked if he would release the files, Trump replied, “Probably.” Thus was born the belief that the Epstein files’ contents would finally be fully and completely seen if Trump won.
Since then, Trump has angrily demanded that people stop talking about the Epstein files, calling it a hoax. Many are also convinced that he attacked Iran initially in 2025 and tore down the White House East Wing in order to change the conversation from the Epstein files.
The damage had already been done with MAGAzens. They wanted to see what was in the Epstein files, and they’re pissed that they’re being denied.
Many Americans were completely about high inflation and the affordability crises during President Biden’s term. Seizing on that discontent, Trump promised that he would immediately lower prices. While some prices did initially drop, Trump first said that lowering inflation was harder than he thought, then dismissed affordability as a hoax, and then started the war with Iran in 2026.
Prices had already been going up in 2025, due to many factors, including Trump’s tariffs and the trade agreements he broke.
Trump then started the Iran war in February of 2026. This no gave him cover for higher prices; the higher prices were due to the war, yes, but he was doing it to free Iranians from their terrible government and to save the world from Iran’s nuclear weapons.
Either way, prices keep rising, and many now blame Trump. The second crack with MAGA had begun to spread.
Trump initially did just as he promised with immigrants. He went after them hard and violently.
Trump’s MAGA supporters were initially gleeful. But then their friends and relatives began getting picked up and whisked away.
A collective cry went out among MAGAzens. Trump said he was going to deport criminals, but he was departing people who were not criminals. Many were here legally, trying to go through the process of becoming US citizens.
Trump didn’t care. They weren’t born in the US, so he was departing them. Then, to worsen matters, Trump began sending them to nations where they were not from.
While running for office in 2024, Trump promised no new wars. He made speeches that Kamala Harris and the Democrats would start new foreign wars and decried the idea that Americans would go off and fight in another endless war.
Then, in 2026, before he was in office for two full years, Trump attacked Iran. Since then, Americans have been treated to a shifting tapestry about why Iran was attacked and the war’s objectives, how much the war is costing us, and when the war would end.
It was not the cakewalk that Trump and his administration expected. They had put in a Fox personality as the head of DOD and fired many high-ranking individuals. Trump and his staff thought they could bomb Iran into submission in a matter of days or weeks.
They were wrong.
Trump’s Iran War has been going over 210 days. Trump calls it a conflict to avoid problems with Congress and the Constitution and then calls it a war when it’s convenient to sell demands for more weapons, munitions, and cutbacks to other programs.
Even MAGAzens are seeing through this, opening a fourth crack with Trump’s MAGA base.
Trump campaigned on helping American farmers and ranchers. Trump said that raising tariffs would save American farmers because other countries were taking advantage of the US.
The tariffs didn’t lower prices. Nor did they open markets. Instead, the tariffs and Trump’s Iran war raised prices. The prices which went up the most affecting farmers and ranchers was diesel fuel and fertilizer. Potash was primary imported from Canada; Trump’s tariffs and trade war with Canada pushed those prices up yet more. In fact, diesel prices increased transportation costs across the board.
Trump knew his tariffs and the war, with its resulting high diesel prices, was hurting both consumers and producers. To address it, Trump pushed a temporary suspension of his tariffs on imported beef.
That resulted in anger among ranchers and farmers, because it didn’t help them. Farmers and ranchers’ problems are far more complex and has to do with droughts, rising energy prices, and smaller herds. Those things couldn’t be fixed by a bandage like suspended tariffs for a limited period and amounts.
Nor did suspending tariffs substantially lower prices. The fifth crack with MAGA opened.
There are potentially other cracks getting exposed.
- Rural hospitals remain in a crisis.
- Personal bankruptcies are on the rise, and red states are leading the way.
- The national debt is growing fast, disrupting the accepted truism that Republicans are fiscally more responsible.
- People of both parties are pushing back against AI and data center construction while Trump urges more building. Trump is pushing for their construction because that’s where most of the commercial construction in the US is now taking place. Stopping construction of them would massively affect the stock market and economy.
Many rifts are emerging between Trump and MAGA. Some of those will probably expand into more cracks in their support of Trump.
The larger question for us now is when will traditional Republicans finally realize that the Trump experiment is a disaster and give him up?
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