Don’t mistake MAGA loyalists for ‘turning’ on Trump – they’re just hedging their bets

The American far right has the jitters. Almost overnight, the fortunes of its favoured candidate appear to have gone into hard reverse.

Against incumbent President Joe Biden, and in the immediate aftermath of an assassination attempt, Donald Trump’s election triumph seemed all but confirmed.

MAGA, or make America great again, has become a shorthand term for Trump supporters.Credit: AP

But the embarrassing flailing in response to Kamala Harris’ ascendancy has seen a manic scrambling as the campaign tries to recalibrate. And with victory no longer assured, Trump’s once-loyal high-profile supporters are beginning to voice their concerns.

Much has been made of far-right influencers such as Candace Owens, Laura Loomer and Nick Fuentes – some of Trump’s best-known and most high-profile supporters – criticising the trajectory of Trump’s campaign over the past week. But their discontent has been brewing for months.

In his choice of Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, Trump had signalled that he was uninterested in appealing to more mainstream voters, indicating to those on the far right that he was completely on board with its hypermasculine, anti-choice, anti-“woke” agenda. The far right and the influencers who dominate this space were riding high.

With Vance in particular, given his connections to the Heritage Foundation and its now-notorious Project 2025 – the far right’s wish list for a future conservative administration – it was understood that Trump was embracing the more extreme section of his base and ignoring the calls from some members of his campaign staff to become more moderate.

But Trump will always go wherever the winds of power blow him. So when Project 2025 began to come under more and more scrutiny, Trump quickly distanced himself, declaring on Truth Social he knew “nothing” about the Heritage Foundation’s controversial manifesto.

While the assassination attempt and its impact on the campaign momentarily overshadowed Trump’s equivocating and quelled the far right’s disappointment, it quickly reappeared as Harris took over the narrative.

The pressure on the Heritage Foundation became so great that Project 2025 architect Paul Dans announced he was planning to stand down. Then far-right influencers like Owens, Loomer and Fuentes started going public with their concerns.

In a tweet viewed more than 2.6 million times, Fuentes said the campaign had been “hijacked”, and that “without serious changes, we are headed for a catastrophic loss”.

Candace Owens hasn’t turned on Donald Trump – she’s simply hedging her bets.Credit: Bloomberg

Owens, who has 5 million followers on X, said on a recent podcast that she was “not sure who is driving the MAGA bus any more” and issued a warning to Trump directly, saying: “You’re losing that support from the people that believed in you … You need those people.”

These influencers haven’t actually “turned” on Trump. In blaming the campaign and high-level staff, they’re hedging their bets. If he wins in November, they’ll say it’s because Trump listened to them and will be well-positioned to build that power and influence either inside or alongside his administration. If he loses, they’ve already laid blame at the feet of the campaign.

The dilemma for them is that no matter the outcome, they need to hold onto their credibility so that they too don’t lose the eyes and ears (and thus their income streams) of their perennially online audiences. Having “influence” is what makes them money and gives them fame. If they back a loser or don’t see a loss coming, they can hardly claim to have influence.

These influencers have no interest in appealing to moderates, independents or swing voters; they are utterly convinced that mobilising their base is how Trump wins. They believe that base is enough, driven by their own righteous cause, even when polling data suggests otherwise.

That’s why they’re becoming increasingly insistent that Trump returns to an agenda as unapologetically far-right as their own. In their minds, he is struggling not because he doesn’t have enough mainstream support, but because he is moving too close to the centre.

To them, Trump represents the possible culmination of a generational ideological project. They are desperate for power and to implement minority rule. It is a grift, but it’s an ideologically driven one.

A loss in November would be an existential blow to their incomes, their influence, and their ideology. That’s why they’re so worried.

But while they’re issuing warnings and calling for campaign scalps, they won’t turn on Trump until they’re absolutely sure he’s a lost cause – and that is still far from certain.

Dr Emma Shortis is a senior researcher in the International and Security Affairs Program at The Australia Institute.

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