'Reckoning on the horizon': How MAGA can't survive without Trump

I don’t think the cat fight between Elon Musk and Donald Trump is staged or fake. At the same time, I don’t think either man means it.

To be sure, Trump has said that maybe he should cancel Musk’s government contracts. In reply, Musk has said that Trump is in the Epstein files, implying that he’s a pedophile. (Musk has also endorsed the idea of impeaching Trump, thus making JD Vance president.)

But come on.

These are not serious men. They are bullies. They don’t really want combat. Bullies never really want combat, because they would risk losing, and bullies never permit the opportunity to be proven to be losers. What they want is for the people around them to soothe their hurt feelings and tell them over and over that they’re big and strong.

If that doesn’t convince you, consider: They’ll be as committed to fighting each other as they have been committed to their women.

Meanwhile, I’ll believe they mean it when the Trump regime, per Steve Bannon’s recommendation, investigates Musk’s immigration status or when Musk's X decides to throttle accounts loyal to the president.

That said, the Musk-Trump feud is revealing in one important way. As my friend Greg Sargent said, “It provides a glimpse into the profound emptiness at the core of MAGA. It's all so hollow. Everything is trolling, ego, lies, conspiracy theories, s----posting. Nothing is ever real.”

It may reveal something else, according to Daniel Roberts.

The “inherently cannibalistic ethos” of Trumpism.

“Without Trump as a unifying figure (and I use “unifying” loosely), it has always seemed obvious to me that this coalition collapses,” Dan told me last week, when the Musk-Trump fight began. “They might all still vote Republican, but without Trump, it’s going to be constant internecine warfare between them.”

“The Republicans have a reckoning on the horizon and there’s no obvious figure to rally behind once Trump is gone,” he added.

About three months ago, Dan predicted that the relationship between Musk and Trump would last about three months. That insight surely comes from being one of the internet’s best combat-sports writers.

JS: Are we really seeing Elon Musk and Donald Trump "going nuclear," as Axios reported? Or is this just more theater?

DR: I think this is 100 percent real. I don’t think either of them has the discipline to pull off a kayfabe feud at this point. They’re both completely incapable of filtering themselves.

It’s also predictable. I predicted the timing pretty well, but I think a lot of people foresaw a breakup all along. You’re talking about two men who have a lifelong pattern of abandoning people when they cease being useful to them and who are both incapable of taking responsibility for failure. It was obvious (to me, at least) that as soon as Musk lost his utility, Trump would discard him as readily as he did Mike Pence (or Marla Maples). Musk was never going to allow himself to be the whipping boy for the failures of this administration. The only question was what the catalyst would be. As soon as Musk blew the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, I knew he was on borrowed time.

JS: As a writer who’s covered combat sports, do you really see them going toe-to-toe? Seems more likely one or both would chicken out.

DR: I don’t think there’s any chance of actual fisticuffs. Trump has never been in a real fight and Musk chickened out of his showdown with Mark Zuckerberg. No, I don’t think they’ll be throwing punches.

But I do think you’ll see a lot of chatter that sounds more like a fight promo than a political speech. These are deeply insecure men who desperately want to be seen as tough. I expect you’ll get all the sound but none of the fury. They’re playing to their social-media followers. It will be interesting to see if Twitter and Truth Social go to war.

JS: It's insecurity verging on, and spilling over into, depravity, though, and treating that depravity as a phony form of manliness. It's so transparent to any man who has actually been in a fight — win or lose — and yet neither Trump nor Musk pay a price. Why?

DR: I think it’s far from certain that neither will pay a price. Musk has a real business problem. He’s alienated Tesla’s liberal base. Now his effort to transform it into a MAGA symbol just went up in smoke. I also think you can bet on a series of audits and investigations into all his companies. Federal contractors are required to maintain drug-free workplaces. I’m willing to bet a dogged auditor could find a violation or two.

Trump is probably in a safer position by virtue of his office, but I would wager that Musk has some damning kompromat on Trump. He has the platform and war chest to make sure it gets out. At the end of the day, hardcore Trump believers won’t be swayed by anything Musk produces, but Musk can still put a big dent in Trump’s favorability, and the midterms are suddenly not that far away. If Musk succeeds in making Trump toxic for Republicans in just a handful of purple districts, Trump’s entire legislative agenda could go up in smoke.

JS: I guess I'm not as hopeful of MAGA’s self-destruction, not when Trump remains the whitest white man of our lifetimes, someone who will never be seen as a coward and a cheat as long as there are enough white men who are willing to look the other way.

DR: I don’t think anything Musk does will hurt Trump with MAGA. Jesus could come back and condemn Trump and his MAGA support wouldn’t budge. I don’t like to give Trump credit, but his, “I could shoot a guy on 5th Avenue and not lose a vote” boast has been proven correct.

But MAGA alone isn’t enough for the Republicans to remain a viable national party. A lot of the people who voted for Trump in 2024 can be persuaded to go elsewhere, and it’s not like it will take huge defections to flip close races. If Musk can peel off 5-10 percent of Trump’s support, the Democrats will have big majorities in both houses and the rest of Trump’s term is spent dealing with impeachment proceedings.

There has always been a shelf-life on Trumpism. It’s an inherently cannibalistic ethos. The Republicans have a reckoning on the horizon and there’s no obvious figure to rally behind once Trump is gone.

JS: Will Trumpism outlive Trump?

DR: When you look at the history of charismatic leaders with cults of personality, few survive. (I’m using “charismatic” loosely here.)

The Trump coalition was always combustible. It was a group of people who deluded themselves into believing they could somehow control Trump. Musk was one. The big-tech crowd. The “America First” Steve Bannon types. The Heritage Foundation and Project 2025. Christian conservatives. None of these groups has meaningful overlapping interests other than the desire to use Trump to further their agenda.

Without Trump as a unifying figure (and, again, I use “unifying” loosely), it has always seemed obvious to me that this coalition collapses. They might all still vote Republican, but without Trump, it’s going to be constant internecine warfare between them.

One thing that I think is under-appreciated about Trump’s base is how much weight they put into the belief that Trump doesn’t kiss anyone’s a--. Factually, they’re very wrong, but I think it’s a firmly held belief that is the sine qua non for most of them. (I think that’s why a lot of them admire Vladimir Putin and other dictators too).

The problem is that it makes it impossible for there to be a successor, because any successor necessarily must first be subservient to Trump. And once someone has been placed in a subservient position, they can never attain that “never kissed anybody’s a--” status.

So, no, I don’t believe Trumpism can survive without Trump.