In the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, there was more unity than ever before among the American Right. There was a singularity of focus: wanting the far-left threat to be crushed and an openness to embrace uneasy alliances to bring devastation to the common enemy. Out of this righteous anger emerged a solidarity among the American Right only dreamed about before.
“I cannot “unite” with the Left because they want me dead. They will spit on my grave when I die and laugh in the faces of my wife and children. There can be no unity with such people. But I will unite with anyone on the Right. I hereby discard any grudge or personal feud I may have had with anyone on my side. Maybe we will pick up those arguments some time in the future. Now we have to stand together,” The Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh wrote in an X post, assuredly much to the chagrin of his boss Ben Shapiro.
“[Charlie Kirk] was my opponent. But I would never wish death upon him. It is undeniable that he was a towering figure in American conservatism. It’s undeniable. I don’t know that there is anyone that can fill his shoes. I don’t know that there’s anyone who could do what he did. He died at 31-years old and left a legacy that many could not achieve in many lifetimes. Millions upon millions of decent, earnest, good people, Christians, patriots – they did love him, and he belongs to them. And above all else, maybe this is what I respected about him the most, is that he would go to these college campuses and proclaim the name of Jesus Christ, and ultimately that is why he was killed,” said Nick Fuentes, host of “America First,” on his show following Kirk’s murder, effectively quashing the years-long feud between the two personalities.
The immediate mandate from the grassroots was in favor of Trump ruthlessly embodying many of the ideals that he has been falsely attributed since his initial election in 2016. Right wingers wanted Trump to go full Palpatine on the libs – instituting mass arrests, forcibly shutting down all ANTIFA-style terror cells, a McCarthyist purge of all national institutions, and so on. This was the fervor that could have resulted in a crackdown on the Left unlike any in our nation’s history. The weeks following Kirk’s murder were the type in which decades could happen, but that window quickly shut and a harsh and depressing reality soon set in – without Kirk holding back the floodgates, the Neocons would reemerge, emboldened and ready to strike.
Kirk’s murder would be seized upon most effectively by the neoconservative hyper-zionist elements of the Right, always eager for an opportunity to send the Republican Party back to 2006, when its supposedly fringe elements could be marginalized and easily kept at bay. They barely waited for Charlie’s corpse to get cold before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went on a grotesque, self-serving media tour to speak of Kirk’s immense support for Israel. Later, it would be revealed that dealing with the appalling demands of Zionist donors demanding censorship at Turning Point events was causing Kirk to question his long-stated support for the Jewish state in his final days.
It was not long before cancel culture returned with a gusto. The biggest target for cancellation, as revealed in Kirk’s text messages of frustration about Zionists, is Tucker Carlson. In the spirit of right-wing unity that had emerged following Kirk’s assassination, Carlson hosted Nick Fuentes on his podcast for a chat. Because the tone and tenor of the show was not overtly hostile and the two men engaged in a cordial discussion finding common ground, this was considered a mortal sin by Carlson, now the bane of the media elites who once spawned him. Ergo, Carlson must be removed from every conference, thrown off social media, shunned in polite society and anyone who defends him must be subject to nonstop harassment – as seen with poor hapless Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts. This was the edict that came down from the highest perch of the Sanhedrin and those who want to keep cashing their $7,000 checks and enjoying the other perks of supporting a persecuted, marginalized cause must follow this narrative no matter how much damage it might cause to free speech.
The most forthright of the right-wing thought controllers is Mark Levin. Levin is a shameless ideologue with a myriad of off-putting idiosyncrasies, making him a living caricature that does immeasurably more damage to his cause than even the most vociferous antisemite. Whereas a slimier, more professional liar like Ben Shapiro might be able to camouflage his agenda through confusing bromides about politeness, individualism, order, the free market and other semi-plausible conservative claptrap, Levin comes right out and admits his agenda is about suppressing the disaffected rabble on behalf of the stodgy, well-connected few.
Levin invoked the likes of William F. Buckley, the CIA-affiliated court conservative who proudly gatekept groups that opposed the war on Vietnam and other instances of foreign interventionism abroad from the conservative movement, as an example for whose example needs to be emulated at a conflab of the pro-war, identity-politics front, the Republican Jewish Coalition. Levin bragged about how Pat Buchanan was suppressed from the mainstream conservative movement, apparently unaware how Trump reappropriated much of Buchanan’s platform to fuel the rise of MAGA. This should serve as a reminder that Levin and his gang did everything in their power to prevent the rise of President Trump in 2016.
If the gatekeeper complex promoted by the likes of Shapiro, Levin, Seth Dillon of the Babylon Bee, James Lindsey, Dana Loesch, and the $7K-per-post gang on X could exist effectively in 2016, Trump would have never made it out of the Republican primary, a milquetoast candidate like Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul or Ted Cruz would have lost to Hillary Clinton in the general, and the world as we know it would be immeasurably worse. Because the interests who they desperately want to suppress got their man in Trump, conservatism has a fighting chance for the generation to come.
It is certainly bizarre that Levin, Shapiro and the conservative thought controllers are attempting to bring back gatekeeping at a time in which they have never been more ill-equipped to do so. Cancelling people over speech has never been more unpopular; in fact, it is white-hot despised on the Right, more than anything except maybe giving tranny hormones to kids for the purposes of hacking off their genitals. The independent media drives public discourse like never before. This begs the question: What is their end game? Are they overwhelmed by Hubris? Or perhaps they are creating a prepackaged narrative that their enemies, such as Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, are the ones who will be inevitably responsible for 2026 midterm losses in the Republican Party?
Anyone who can view the polls or feel the direction of the country understands that Republicans are in a precarious position for the midterms. Trump has lost large swaths of independents and young voters who constituted an important part of the newest iteration of MAGA that seemed so promising heading into the 2024 election. There have been several unfortunate policy moves by Trump that have contributed to the severing of this nascent coalition. Although Trump has called himself the peace president and certainly has brokered impressive peace deals throughout the globe, the frequency of U.S.-led bombing campaigns throughout the world has risen substantially since Trump took over from Biden. Trump dropped missiles on Iran at the behest of Israel and is now on the brink of a war with Venezuela for the purposes of regime change. Trump’s initial stonewalling on the Epstein Files was a major unenforced error. Zero deep state criminals have been hit with changes with former FBI Director James Comey’s case being dismissed on a technicality. Trump essentially pulled the plug on DOGE, which is being kept on only as a gimmick at this point.
What may be most dismaying of all is Trump’s endorsements. Trump has wholeheartedly endorsed Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the most reviled RINOs going back decades, for re-election. Graham, Sen. John McCain’s top crony, has been hated by different generations of grassroots Republicans going back nearly two decades. Graham has received full-throated endorsement after endorsement from Trump as Reps. Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene are thrown under the bus and demonized despite near 100-percent fidelity to conservatism throughout their service in Congress. Trump’s recent endorsement of Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales, pro-amnesty RINO, over his challenger, pro-2A firebrand Brandon Herrera, is another example of a Trump endorsement that crushes the soul of the MAGA base.
The neocons pushing cancel culture will do everything they can so Republicans learn the wrong lessons after midterm losses that are likely forthcoming. They will incredulously claim that clamor on social media only understood by far less than 1% of the voting public caused the disastrous outcome. Much of this is gearing up toward upending Vice President J.D. Vance’s chances to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2028. Vance, pilloried by many on the populist Right because of his deep ties to tech oligarchs like Peter Thiel, is positioned to be the standard bearer for MAGA, regardless of whether or not he is authentic in that role. The likes of Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will be running to supplant MAGA and return the Republican Party to the bygone era when Conservative Inc. called the shots. This is the proxy war that is being waged right now, and why Tucker Carlson, a top Vance ally, has emerged as a popular punching bag among the neocons and ardent Zionists.
Trump can, of course, point to major successes on curtailing illegal immigration, fighting crime and improving the economy throughout the midterm cycle. These are all historic achievements, but the room for error during the second Trump administration was always miniscule. Trump had to nail it on every front, a herculean task to be sure, to keep his new governing coalition together. Because of the mistakes, many libertarians and independents have been turned off — a significant-enough swing vote to cost the Republicans many key races in the midterms in purple states. As a result, many young people who voted Trump in 2024 will be staying home or voting Democrat in 2026. Because America First warriors are not going to win in their primary elections because Trump instead chose to endorse RINOs and marshal resources behind those RINOs, Trump loyalists will stay home because the only reason they ever showed up to vote in the first place was because Trump humiliated the political class that has now fused with his presidency.
Barring a surprising change of affairs heading into the midterms – and a man of Trump’s talents can certainly never be counted out completely – the Civil War among the Right will be intensifying as every inflamed faction points the finger of blame at each other following Democrat victories. We must be prepared with our counter-narratives well in advance. We must point to the extensive polling that shows how toxically unpopular Israel has become due to the brutal bombing campaigns of Gaza that are now common knowledge with exposure on social media. The data makes it clear that those calling for mere political disentanglement with Israel – a bigoted anti-Semitic stance of genocidal consequences in the eyes of histrionic Republican Zionists – are promoting a view that is in line with the majority of Americans. Those in the GOP ordering blind support for Israel, ignoring human rights violations sanctioned by Netanyahu and demanding the U.S. go to war on Israel’s behalf are the political albatross that must be jettisoned heading into the 2028 election cycle.
With the cancer cut out of the party, the Republican constituency can consist of anti-establishment populists, America First provocateurs, libertarians who are somewhat culturally conservative, Scofield Bible-rejecting Christian conservatives, and disaffected liberals radicalized against the political Uni-party. The unifying principles will be a noninterventionist foreign policy, an end to mass migration, an economy centered around the native-born worker population, and a steadfast, unwavering dedication to free speech. Trump’s unmatched charisma and political mastery molded several divergent political factions into an unthinkably powerful electoral coalition, but for MAGA to avoid extinction, it must move beyond an untenable voting bloc dependent upon one figurehead and toward a set of forward-thinking ideals appealing to independents and the youth. The 2026 midterms will be the final political cycle in which the Israel lobby dominates Republican politics, and its merciful end cannot come soon enough.
