Fuentes, Carlson, Heritage, Turning Point, Vance
The coming crack-up of the MAGA coalition
I have just finished re-reading my column from July regarding the political landscape. Let’s re-examine two important graphics.
Blue dots are Clinton voters; red dots are Trump voters. They are located according to their economic beliefs (liberal left, conservative right) and social-cultural beliefs (liberal down, conservative up).
These are what we call the marginal distributions, showing where Clinton voters and Trump voters fall on each collection of issues (economic, social-cultural).
In both graphics, the lesson is clear. Americans as a whole are economically slightly left of center; socially-culturally they are slightly right of center. Capture the center and you win. Flee to the margins and you lose.
You must have the center to win. You cannot win with your party’s base alone, especially for Republicans. Here is a breakdown of American voter registration by party for August 2025.
Democrats only need to add 13% of voters to their base to win. Republicans must add 19% of voters to their base to win.
Most leftist Americans and most on the far-right fundamentally misunderstand Donald Trump, for whom I voted three times. To the chagrin of the first group and the disappointment of the second, he is not a far-rightist. He is arguably a radical centrist, a champion of the social safety net as well as secure borders (which Democrats used to support). He opposes the neoliberal-neoconservative novelty of free trade. He opposes American involvement in neoconservative nation-building, but also rejects paleoconservative isolationism. He nominates conservative judges, and celebrates his small base of supporters in the homosexual community. He is a real centrist.
The extremists in both parties never learn their lessons. When it comes to abortion, the loudmouths proclaim either abortion until birth and even afterwards, or else an abortion ban even when the mother’s life is at risk, but most of the country is in the sensible middle.
The extremists tend to overplay their hands on just about every issue, stubbornly misreading the electorate. This is how we wound up with off-putting maniacs in both parties:
Rachel Maddow, Zohran Mamdani, Barack Obama, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Joy Reid, Rashida Tlaib, and most employees in academia
Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Alex Jones, Candace Owens
Those of you with me long enough remember my 2024 presidential election forecasts. The most important predictor was the 16-year cycle, involving two Democrat presidential terms followed by two Republican presidential terms. This dominated most of the 20th century and early 21st century. There are reasons for the former dominance of this cycle, which would take too long for this column.
The last president to benefit from the 16-year cycle was the most radical, polarizing president in my lifetime, Barack Obama. Republicans, fed up with the pre-emptive surrender of McCain and Romney, chose to pay back the Democrats with a mirror image of Obama, namely Trump. Trump combined a fighting spirit with radical centrism, and the rest is history.
But the damage Obama inflicted appears to be permanent. The 16-year cycle seems to be broken. Hypocritical Democrats were enraged by Trump’s behavior, a mere reflection of their own false messiah. I believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen, but it is possible that enraged Democrats threw Trump out of office. (This cannot explain Trump’s victory in 2024.) Whatever happened, Americans fed up with Biden’s incompetence and leftism went back to Trump.
The same alternation in party could happen again in 2028. But our right-wing extremists (just like their leftist counterparts), unable to read the room, see the 2024 election as a triumphant mandate for slashing and burning the middle. At last, they hope, we can finally discuss the Jewish Question (whatever that might be), and try to implement some sort of Final Solution to the problem.
Let’s recall how horseshoe theory works.
The Heritage Foundation is America’s premier, establishment, conservative think-tank. They have anointed Tucker Carlson as their oracle, and sponsor his podcast. Carlson gave a credulous, welcoming interview to Nick Fuentes, who has stated his admiration for Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, and said he wants to kill all Jews. I fail to understand how this is to be considered conservative.
This same Carlson went into rapturous hysterics about a single American military mission to destroy the nuclear program of Iran, which has threatened “death to America” since 1979. The reason this mission enflamed him so was that it might help to protect Israel from annihilation, and that protection of this particular ally saddened Carlson greatly. He has not informed us if he is equally distraught over President Trump’s unilateral declaration that Americans must be prepared to die for Qatar’s security; is it because he gets paid by Qatar? Qatar is the home of the Muslim Brotherhood and the former home of Khalid Shaikh Muhamad, mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attack.
Carlson has been one of the faces of Turning Point USA, even after his disgustingly ugly anti-Semitic attacks during the memorial service for Charlie Kirk. He told Fuentes that he hates Christian Zionists more than anyone on earth: more so, say, than the jihadists who have murdered hundreds of thousands of Nigerian Christians. Some Christian. TPUSA evidently likes what they are hearing from Carlson. Both TPUSA and Heritage have completely lost me and many others.
What worries me is Carlson’s intimacy with Donald Trump Jr and with JD Vance. Carlson is believed to have influenced Don Jr to have his father choose Vance as his running mate. Carlson’s son works in Vance’s office.
Vance’s performance at Ole Miss last week on behalf of TPUSA was shameful. He threw his wife under the bus for political gain, and endorsed by his silence several anti-Semitic tropes offered up by his eager audience during the question period. All of this has led me to adopt a new social media slogan: #NeverVance
The hard right is giddy with excitement that in 2028, FINALLY we will have someone in Vance who will burn down the whole post-World War 2 social order. Onward to the Middle Ages, Crusades, and feudalism!
I have stated before that I will not choose between a fascist and a communist. Both are repugnant. Vance is delusional if he thinks he can win a general election this way. If the Democrats are smart enough to nominate a centrist who does not curse his political opponents, someone with the temperament of John Fetterman, he will wipe the floor with JD Vance.
I hope the Republican electorate is smart enough to nominate a true MAGA executive, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, or even Secretary of State Marco Rubio. These could continue the MAGA legacy in a positive direction without threatening the center.
There is little doubt that some on the right are moving into (or have been there) Fascist anti-Semite, anti-Israel, anti-Jew territory. These include Carlson, Bannon, Owens, Greene and Gaetz. The solid, middle base of the GOP (I wouldn't necessarily call it MAGA) is too small to be effective on its own. Don't forget there is a rather large group (slightly right of center) of Neo-Cons or establishment GOP (some never-Trumpers). I still like Ron, but he has suffered damage from Trump's take-no-prisoners primary campaigning. Rubio also suffered from the primary (2016), but has regained some gravitas as SOS. But, he has his weak points. I would not count out Ted Cruz, a reliable conservative and a strong Israeli supporter. There many be one or two others as possible POTUS. While the younger folk might like Vance, I do not trust him. I hope that TPUSA continues as a GOP recruiter, but their affinity for Carlson and that crew is worrisome.
Unless the economy crashes (which is not unlikely), I'll write off the Demonrats. They are finished for the next couple of elections.
Surak, long time no read. It's me the gadfly formerly known as tom. Probably you don't remember me, or maybe I annoyed you enough that you wish you could forget. Anyway, I'm glad to see you are active again. Or maybe I am the one who was more inactive and regarding you I should maybe say `still' instead of `again.'
I'm not sure about `left-right-center' terminology anymore. That seems like something that was more meaningful in 20th century political divisions and has been slowly becoming more incoherent over the last 25 years. At this point, for me it is about being against woke-Islamic fascism or not and as for all other issues, I've shelved them unless or until this fight against woke_war-jihad is won. I'm still concerned with things like the feminization of the West and illegal drugs wrecking lives and communities etc. but for now all things are centered on the one clear existential fight against the woke-Islam partnership, or perhaps it is the woke-Islam-communist axis if China et al are to be included separately.