'More bark than bite': MTG's failure seen as signal that MAGA won't survive without Trump

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green's leadership challenge to House speaker Mike Johnson shows the limits of MAGA's power if Donald Trump isn't directly involved, an analyst wrote Monday.

The Georgia Republican has filed a motion to vacate the speaker's chair, but Johnson defied the Trump ally's demands by getting Ukraine aid passed — and then blew her off with a "bless her heart."

And New York Times columnist David French said the episode shows the limits of the former president's movement.

"Does the MAGA movement have the same control over the Republican Party when Trump isn’t directly in the fray?" French asked.

"Can it use the same tactics to impose party discipline and end political careers? If the likes of Greene or Steve Bannon or Matt Gaetz or Charlie Kirk can wield the same power, then the transformation of the party will be complete. It won’t be simply in thrall to Trump; it will be in thrall to his imitators and heirs and perhaps lost to the reactionary right for a generation or more."

Republican lawmakers who voted for Ukraine aid faced little backlash from their constituents, he wrote. And Democratic leadership publicly backed Johnson against Greene's threat.

French noted that even Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), whom he called "the Republican Party’s human weather vane," blasted the GOP congresswoman's threats as "unhelpful."

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"Of course, Cruz will pivot on a dime if Trump turns on Johnson," French wrote, "but at the moment the power dynamic is clear, and MAGA without Trump is much more bark than bite."

Trump and his MAGA allies have transformed the GOP in his own image since he came down the escalator in his New York City apartment building and declared his run for president in 2016, but French wrote that Greene's recent failure to take down Johnson suggests Trump's movement will not survive without him.

"We know Donald Trump," French wrote. "He’s been a megawatt celebrity for more than four decades. He built an entire brand around the false notion that he was one of the world’s greatest businessmen. He has an uncanny ability to reach his core audience. And you, Representative Greene, are no Donald Trump."

"Neither is the rest of MAGA," French added. "The clown car collection of MAGA personalities who orbit Trump is often both profoundly weird and remarkably inept. They suffered a collective humiliation in the 2022 midterm elections. Mainstream Republicans coasted to victory in key elections in Georgia, Ohio and Florida, while the election-denying MAGA conspiracy theorists suffered a string of losses in battleground states."