Now isn’t this a surprise? MAGA always seems to be firmly behind Trumpolini. This time, it seems that isn’t so. It’s a little odd to me. The ones who were against the bombing might surprise you. To start, from CNN:
President Donald Trump’s MAGA sphere of conservative media and influencers — many of whom had expressed skepticism before his decision to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities — is divided over the president’s dramatic move to strike. Many of its most prominent figures rallied around Trump. But others sharply criticized the decision, said they want to see more explanation than his brief Saturday night speech, or warned of a drawn-out conflict.
That’s a pretty d*mn good reason to me. Have we gotten ourselves into another prolonged conflict in the Middle East? If we have, and Iran decides to start throwing missiles and drones against any of our locations there, well, that’s an even bigger mess. They’ve been hitting Israel, which is not exactly a big country, so it would seem that they could easily throw ordnance at us.
I’m hoping they don’t, since we hit specific targets and didn’t bomb them indiscriminately. But working through diplomacy all the way up through the day we hit them is insulting. It didn’t take a short time to get those bombers over there, after all. (I’m still pissed at the stupidity of the US.) But anyhow, let’s get back to our MAGAts.
“Iran gave President Trump no choice,” said Charlie Kirk, a pro-Trump media personality and founder of the activist group Turning Point USA. “For a decade he has been adamant that Iran will never get a nuclear weapon. Iran decided to forego diplomacy in pursuit of a bomb. This is a surgical strike, operated perfectly,” Kirk said Saturday on X. “President Trump acted with prudence and decisiveness.”
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who withdrew as Trump’s first selection for attorney general, compared on X the president’s bombing of Iran to his first-term killing of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, which was met with some predictions that it would ignite a regional conflict that did not come true. “President Trump basically wants this to be like the Soleimani strike – one and done. No regime change war,” Gaetz said Saturday night on X. “Trump the Peacemaker!” However, on Sunday, Gaetz expressed skepticism toward any broader mission in Iran.
Yes, I know that was a big gulp of information to come from just two people. All of what they said was relevant to the point. I must admit that Gaetz startled me with that last bit. He’s such a fervent supporter of the Pampers President that one wouldn’t expect him to be cautious on the bigger picture.
And now we turn to the other side, to the nays instead of yays. Some of these might surprise you. MAGA doesn’t usually see this type of division. They are not all-in. They apparently don’t want to *be* all in. Here we go with the other side:
Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist and now a pro-Trump podcaster, said Saturday night that the president has “some work to do” to explain his decision to supporters. “I do think that the president’s got to have a little deeper explanation of this — particularly why it looks like we’re doing the heavy lifting for Israel,” he said on his podcast shortly after Trump addressed the nation Saturday night. He also said he was concerned with “incrementalism” and the prospect of the United States entering a “forever war” if Iran retaliates and the US takes further action.
Laura Loomer, a pro-Trump activist who said the president “just saved us all from a nuclear holocaust” by bombing Iran, noted the silence from some in Trump’s movement who had opposed US involvement. “Can someone please conduct a wellness check on Tucker Carlson, Dave Smith, Candace Owens and the entire MAHA crew?” she wrote on X, making reference to the “Make America Healthy Again” movement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. supporters who backed Trump.
Carlson, a former Fox News host and one of the loudest voices opposing US involvement in Iran, as of late Sunday morning, had said nothing on social media about Trump’s bombing. Owens, a conservative commentator who said on her YouTube show last week that “MAGA was a declaration of war on neocons” and accused Trump of fracturing his base, was perhaps the most vocal critic Saturday. She called his post on Truth Social announcing the bombing “utterly deranged.”
Now, this doesn’t mean I’m going to suddenly start being MAGA. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yet the divisiveness among his supporters is interesting and unexpected. It seems that the first cracks in his fan club are showing. I doubt any of them will ever completely turn against him. We couldn’t be that lucky. But still … but. Thanks for sticking with me!
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