“We Are DONE With the America Last Party!”Former MAGA super-influencer Marjorie Taylor Greene hasn’t only dumped Donald Trump.She’s now quit the Republican Party.The ousted Georgia Republican yesterday said she would follow her friend, conservative media commentator Tucker Carlson, into political exile.“There is A LOT of us that are absolutely fed up and will not support a party that betrays its voters and country,” Ms Greene insisted in a characteristically blunt social media post.“That does not mean we are turning into Democrats either. But we are DONE with the America LAST Republican Party.”The political firebrand fell out with President Trump last year after campaigning for the release of child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s court documents.But the final straw came in February, with Mr Trump’s new foreign war: the assault on Iran.Ms Greene’s revolt is a symptom. Not a cause.Mr Trump’s supporters are divided.There’s the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. It is sold on sweeping conspiracy theories, deep state crusades, tough talking culture wars and anti-immigration action.Then there are the America First isolationists. They want the nation out of international trade deals, military alliances, global aid programs and foreign wars. To them, it’s all about imposing their version of Christian family values on American society.The agendas are similar.But their priorities are not.News personality Tucker Carlson was one of MAGA’s greatest preachers during the first Trump Administration. Now, not so much.“What we know for certain is that the United States went to war with Iran — a war we are losing, that we’ve effectively lost already — because of pressure from the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu,” Mr Carlson asserted as the Iran war ground to a stalemate.So, he quit the Republicans.“How could I or any American voter support a political party that’s not loyal to the United States?” he explained during a weekend podcast interview. “That puts the interests of a foreign country above those of its own citizens. It’s not possible to vote for people like that, and I’m not going to.”White House WrestleMania“MAGA is me. MAGA loves everything I do,” President Trump declared in January.But Ms Greene and Mr Carlson represent growing cracks in his support base.Politicians. Commentators. Voters. All are asking inconvenient questions.“The grievances and concerns outlined by Greene and Carlson are real,” argues American politics analyst Clodagh Harrington. “This dissatisfaction is visible among Republican voters, though probably not to an extent that suggests support for Trump is in danger of imminent collapse.”And President Trump is fighting back.“I call the shots. I call all the shots,” Mr Trump insists. “He (Netanyahu) doesn’t call the shots … If anything, I might’ve forced Israel’s hand.”But the war on Iran remains chronically unpopular with the American public.America First is a core tenet of Making America Great Again. And it demands no new wars.But it got one.And, last week, Mr Trump insisted he’d never promised not to go to war.Ms Greene contradicted him.“I heard him say personally so many times as I campaigned with him, where he said, ‘No more foreign wars, I will end war. I will bring world peace’. He said that over and over again,” she told US media. “People rolled out video after video of him saying [that] on the campaign trail.”Four months after Israeli and US bombs began falling on Iran, the Republican war hawks who pilloried Ms Greene and Mr Carlson are now themselves in open revolt.Mr Trump’s Memorandum of Understanding isn’t the unconditional surrender from Iran he had promised. It lays out no new antinuclear weapon provisions. It allows Iran to have ballistic missiles. And it facilitates $300 billion in “reconstruction” funding.But the war is also being felt in the American heartland.It’s affecting fuel prices. And food prices. Is this hurting Mr Trump?“The war and associated inflation are likely to cost Republicans more seats in the midterms — certainly more than they might have lost otherwise — but the president faces no imminent revolt from Congress,” notes Stimson Centre political analyst Emma Ashford. “He is remarkably unconstrained for a man who has started one of the most unpopular wars in US history.”Influencer insurgency“Both sides need to take off their political blinders,” Ms Greene asserts. “You are all being incited into civil war, yet none of it solves any of the real problems that we all face, and tragically people are dying.”The MAGA/America First rift is now a hot topic among media commentators and social media clickbait jockeys.“They’ve turned, not just against him, but many of their positions and much of their rhetoric is not that much different than the hard Left today,” complains conservative Heritage Foundation think-tank spokesman Victor Davis Hanson. “We don’t know where they’re going to end up, but they’re on a trajectory to join the Never Trumpers at The Bulwark, perhaps.” But this battle isn’t being fought out over American breakfast tables and streets. Yet.“Mostly, the doubts about whether Trump’s base continues to support him arise from the soap opera-style drama playing out among right-wing media and celebrities,” Ms Ashford argues. It’s great for social media algorithms. And per-click revenue makers.“The looming question is whether this seed of elite discontent can grow into something organisationally meaningful before 2028, when Americans elect their next president,” adds Ms Harrington. Poll after poll reveals record low support for the Iran war. But those same polls show little movement among President Trump’s MAGA faithful.Are they enough?“MAGA is not necessarily the same thing as America First, a foreign-policy principle with which most of his key detractors in the war seemed to identify,” argues Ms Ashford.Electoral polling group More in Common has found hardcore MAGA Republicans contributed just 30 per cent of President Trump’s 2024 election campaign votes. “Indeed, it’s precisely the less loyal parts of Trump’s winning coalition in 2024 — non-college-educated voters, young Americans, disaffected Joe Rogan or Theo Von listeners — who are most opposed to the war,” Ms Ashford adds.The Apostasy of Marjorie“Marjorie is not AMERICA FIRST or MAGA, because nobody could have changed her views so fast, and her new views are those of a very dumb person,” Mr Trump posted to Truth Social. He labelled her “washed up” and a “low IQ traitor”.Ms Greene slid into Trump apostasy by criticising the administration’s prevarications over the Epstein files. Then came the controversial, heavily-redacted – and incomplete – document release.This put President Trump in a potentially embarrassing situation. He’d been close friends with the sex predator in the 80s and 90s. As had many of his circle of associates.“I would also suspect that there’s a lot of intelligence information there, as well as very disturbing information that would be on prominent people,” Ms Greene commented.Then Ms Greene dared to criticise his pro-crypto, pro-billionaire policies.So Mr Trump revoked support for her 2026 re-election campaign.Ms Greene has found fresh courage now that she’s stepped down from the House of Representatives (her Republican backers shifted to Mr Trump’s new preference).She’s complained about the pharmaceutical industry, America’s relationship with Israel, and the primacy of the Constitution.It’s not quite the same set of concerns expressed in the MAGA heartland, however.Turning Point USA is a Christian-conservative right-wing advocacy group founded by assassinated evangelist Charlie Kirk. It held its Women’s Leadership Summit last month.Support for President Trump was muted.“We’re not really identifying with the MAGA party anymore,” Christian influencer Savanna Faith Stone, 21, told US media. “They’re realising, ‘Hey, you promised lower gas prices. You promised the economy would be better. Like, that’s why we voted for you.”About 30 per cent of young female voters supported Mr Trump in the 2024 election. Now, polls suggest they’re turning their backs on the 2026 midterm vote.“People want ‘fight, fight, fight Trump’. They don’t want ‘ballroom Trump’,” Clark said. “I feel like some of the magic and the spark that helped us win 2024 is missing.”A new American movement?“I SUPPORT TUCKER. Trump doesn’t even know what MAGA is anymore,” Ms Greene posted in March. “Trump is not America First, he’s donor first. Tucker would beat Trump if he ran for President and Trump tried to violate the Constitution and tried to run again for a third term.”Mr Carlson has since repeatedly rejected the idea.But it remains a hot debating topic among conservative influencers.And some are, for the first time, seeing weakness in Mr Trump’s position.“And if Donald Trump, for a variety of reasons, can’t turn the tactical victory into long-term strategic success, he will be vulnerable,” warns Mr Hanson.“But the question now that we’re looking at, will the pressures that surround him in a 360-degree fashion, force Trump to relent when he’s inside of a spectacular and historic victory?”Like Ms Greene, Mr Carlson has renounced his belief in Mr Trump.Mr Carlson doesn’t care about Epstein’s tentacles potentially reaching through the Republican Party or Trump supporters. But, to him, sending America’s sons to fight on foreign soil for other people’s problems is something altogether offensive.Mr Trump has been quick to turn on his erstwhile friend.“Tucker has lost his way,” Mr Trump told US media. “I knew that a long time ago, and he’s not MAGA. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America first, and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that.”Mr Carlson is a little more coy.He knows Mr Trump remains popular among the hard right, despite his controversial choices.“There are times I get annoyed with Trump, right now definitely included,” Mr Carlson says. “But I’ll always love him no matter what he says about me.”What happens next depends on Mr Trump.“If the conflict drags on and economic pain deepens, the room for elite dissatisfaction to percolate down to the base is likely to widen,” Ms Harrington warns.“But this rebranding exercise, of attempting to seize the MAGA label from Trump and attach it to a new vessel, is a significant development. It suggests that ‘America first’ is no longer exclusively synonymous with one figure.”Jamie Seidel is a freelance writerRead related topics:Donald Trump