Ground 'shifting beneath MAGA' as Trump supporters splintered by recent outburst: analysis

The MAGA faithful splintered further than ever after Donald Trump's recent outbursts on Truth Social.

Sophia Tesfaye, writing in Salon, noted the split had come not just because of the Super Bowl but because of a recent post made, which depicted Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as monkeys.

It was a line which even the MAGA faithful were not prepared to cross, Tesfaye argues. She wrote, "The problem is that MAGA’s public posture is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. This is a movement that thrives on provocation but panics when that very provocation carries consequences.

"The MAGA coalition wants the thrill of trolling without the cost of being held responsible. They want to wink at racism and historical denialism while insisting, with a straight face, that any backlash is manufactured.

"The split in MAGA world on display this week reveals that the movement is fracturing along the fault lines of its own contradictions. Meanwhile, Trump himself seems to recognize the weakness, posting desperately about having the 'highest approval rating' among Hispanic voters — a claim based on a nine-month-old article."

Those problems in the MAGA faithful are coming to life in the White House too, as former staffers under Trump's first and second terms are coming to blows in public.

"MAGA’s loudest allies are fracturing, distracted and increasingly unhinged," Tesfaye wrote. "Elon Musk and Steve Bannon, the financial and ideological pillars of Trumpism, are now publicly bickering over the Epstein files, turning a serious issue of abuse and accountability into yet another right-wing civil war battle.

"At the same time, rank-and-file Republicans in Congress are falling for troll accounts in a rush to manufacture outrage over Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show. A misleading claim that the performance was filled with expletives and indecency in Spanish sent conservatives into a frenzy.

"Florida Rep. Randy Fine accused Bad Bunny of encouraging children to use cocaine based on cherry-picked lyrics. Rep. Mark Alford of Missouri suggested on Real America’s Voice that the performance could be 'much worse than the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction.'"