A coalition of MAGA die-hards, tech bros and blue-collar workers were key to Donald Trump’s November victory.
Now, some of them are already at each other’s throats.
Free traders and protectionists are at odds over Trump’s promise to enact “universal” tariffs. Immigration hard-liners are butting heads with tech companies that support legal immigration. And isolationists are grappling with the president-elect’s apparently increasingly expansionist global agenda.
And days before he takes office some of Trump’s most ardent original supporters have been the most resistant to the bigger tent.
“There’s going to be a fundamental ideological clash between the original MAGA base that supported President Trump from the beginning and the tech overlords who are literally buying influence so that they can try to manipulate and change our foreign policy and our tech policy and our immigration policy,” said Laura Loomer, the controversial conservative activist who said she lost premium features on X due to disagreeing with Elon Musk on immigration policy.
These clashes, including opening shots in recent days from longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon at the president-elect’s new companion Musk, presage the challenges Trump faces in governing his newly big-tent Republican Party.
But some Trump allies argue these divides are a feature — not a bug — of Trump’s governing style. During his first administration, the president-elect was known for running his Cabinet like an executive boardroom: He brought together a cadre of diverse interests, let them duke it out and then, on his own, decided the path forward. That strategy, of encouraging competition among his advisers, allowed Trump to retain the ultimate decision-making authority and prevented any one group from gaining too much power.
“Whenever one of these issues comes up and there’s a fight, like between Steve Bannon and Elon Musk, and I’m like, well, whose name is on the ballot? Trump’s,” said Scott Jennings, a GOP strategist who was at one point considered for the president-elect’s press secretary post. “His personal and his political influence is at its apex. And so if there’s a fight or a division going on, and he’s got two people who are legitimately allies of Trump and want to see him do well but they’re fighting or competing for his ear on something, ultimately, his power and influence here is going to settle it, I would imagine, rather quickly. There’s no more powerful person in Washington right now.”
The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
Beyond the schism between hardcore MAGA loyalists and Musk over H-1B visas — which are designed to allow companies to bring skilled foreign workers to the U.S. but have drawn the ire of some Democrats and Republicans — some Trump loyalists like Loomer and Bannon have also attacked noted venture capitalists and players in the tech world.
“This is only the first of many eruptions and fractures between the MAGA base and the so-called Tech Right as they call themselves — and I say ‘as they call themselves’ because these guys are not right wing — they decided to support Trump after he was almost assassinated, but their voting record and their political giving history shows [otherwise],” Loomer said.
In an interview with POLITICO, Bannon also took aim at tech funders Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, who are said to have Trump’s ear — and even questioned his pick of Ken Howery to be ambassador to Greenland due to his ties to Thiel.
“I hope our efforts in Greenland are not associated with that,” Bannon said.
Trump observers say the spat reflects a long-standing truth in Trump world — being in his inner circle is always a moving target. The president-elect has long had a reputation for making policy decisions based on the last person he talked to about an issue.
“Steve Bannon has been in his ear for a long time, something of a base whisperer, yet now we see Elon coming into prominence,” said Matthew Bartlett, a GOP strategist and former Trump administration appointee. But “at the end of the day, it is [Trump’s] decision — whether it’s H-1B visas, whether it’s critical foreign policy — and he has no problem asserting himself and leaving others out in the cold. The king whisperer can easily find himself on the other side of the moat.”
Trump’s first administration was chock full of groups that were at odds with each other: establishment Republicans and MAGA outsiders; policy pragmatists and ideologues; hawks and isolationists; institutionalists and loyalists; and family and non-family. Those splits allowed Trump to frame himself as the ultimate consensus-builder and dealmaker, including with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the renegotiation of NAFTA.
And he appears to be taking the same approach ahead of his second term. Already, Trump quickly tamped down any would-be opposition to Mike Johnson’s speakership, and he has expressed his preference for one “big, beautiful bill” on reconciliation.
Because so many diverse interests came together to elect Trump, even including some Democrats and independents, Trump allies argue that it’s inevitable he’ll make a decision that at least some of his supporters disagree with. Last week, he roiled isolationists when he wouldn’t rule out using military force to annex Greenland and regain control over the Panama Canal, seemingly expanding the “America First” agenda of his first term to a more expansionist vision.
Anti-abortion groups have been frustrated by his pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary. And more traditional conservatives haven’t been happy with his choice of strongly pro-union Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) as Labor secretary.
A former Trump official, granted anonymity to assess a fraught moment for the movement, also argued that this is the most unified the country has been around the president-elect since he first entered office.
The Laura Loomers and Steve Bannons of the world “feel like they built Trump, they made Trump Trump, and they want to leverage it like a purity test,” the person said. “That doesn’t work with a coalition this big.”
