MAGA Malaise

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by MARK POWELL

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The dog days of summer are upon us once more. That long, desolate 60-day stretch between Independence and Labor Days filled with heat, humidity and an endless longing for it to be over. Outside presidential election years (when the two parties shoehorn their national conventions into summer’s blast oven furnace), things are usually quiet on the political front. Congress recesses, the president hits the golf course and the political class sleepwalks its way to autumn.

Usually – but this is no usual time.

To borrow from Mr. Shakespeare, now is the summer of MAGA’s discontent. Everyone in the Trump camp, it seems, is unhappy about something at the moment.

Before we proceed, it’s important to understand something at the outset. The acronym “MAGA” is tossed about these days like a volleyball at the beach. But contrary to what Democrats and their acolytes in the MSM relentless proclaim, MAGA is not a monolithic bloc. To hear the Left tell it, MAGA supporters are akin to Zombies, politically deaf, dumb, blind morons who robotically do their master’s bidding.

The reality, as usual, is quite different. And that’s where things get complicated. Because the line between “MAGA” and “Trump supporter” has grown so blurred that the latter are lumped in with the former.

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Given that ill-defined description, MAGA (as now used) casts a wide net. It starts with people who voted for Trump and extends to those who are True Believers, the folks who would stick with him if he, as he once famously said, decided to “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody.” That array spans such a huge spectrum of Republicans, it’s easy to understand why so many of them are so unhappy this summer.

Exhibit A is the White House’s badly botched handling of the Epstein Files matter. It has created its own Vietnam, a quagmire that not only threatens to do lasting damage, but also has no easy escape route.

Throughout the 2024 campaign, candidate Trump repeatedly promised to release the files. Initially, this new administration seemed poised to quickly fulfill that vow. Asked about Epstein’s so-called client list, “it’s sitting on my desk right now to review,” attorney general Pam Bondi famously said on February 21.

“That’s been a directive by President Trump,” she added.

Days later, Bondi did, indeed, release a batch of paperwork, which several Trump-friendly social media influencers tripped over themselves being photographed holding up. Yet it essentially said nothing. MAGA grumbled, but its discontent lay dormant … until the nasty breakup between Trump and outgoing DOGE honcho Elon Musk.

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“Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonald Trump is in the Epstein Files,” Musk tweeted in early June. “That is the real reason they haven’t been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”

At this, MAGA’s curiosity was more than a little piqued.

But it was last week’s stunning two-page memo dropped by the FBI and DOJ – a document that essentially said, “move along, people – nothing to see here” – which lit the kindling and turned public frustration into outrage.

In that memo (.pdf), there was “no incriminating ‘client list'” and “no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals.”

With that assertion, MAGA teetered on the edge of open revolt. It had trusted Trump to follow through on his promise. Instead, all it got was more quintessential Washington stonewalling, behavior typical of the very swamp Trump promised to drain. Now, MAGA is calling for Bondi’s head on a platter.

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RELATED | ANOTHER BIG, UGLY BETRAYAL

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The president upped the ante by posting on his Truth Social platform Saturday night, “What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals’? They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening.”

Making sure there was no confusion, Trump implored his followers to “not waste time and energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.”

Translation: “Shut up and fall in line.”

Whether the MAGA rank and file obey those marching orders remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, there’s lingering discontent within the MAGA realm over Trump’s signature legislative accomplishment: the just-passed “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Everyone is happy the 2017 tax cuts won’t expire at year’s end as originally planned – but that’s about all everyone agrees on.

Fiscal conservatives are screaming bloody murder over the ox-staggering load of spending the measure just unleashed, which is estimated to boost the national debt by $3.4 trillion over the next decade.

Traditional conservatives are also appalled that many of Joe Biden’s marquee “green energy” darlings lived to see another day thanks to being tucked away deep inside OBBB.

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Then there’s the ongoing nightmare of the Russia-Ukraine War. Again, Trump campaigned last fall on severely curtailing – or even halting – aid to Ukraine. Given how deep a growing non-interventionist streak runs through MAGA, that promise was music to its ears. As the Epstein drama swirled, though, news broke Trump was seriously looking at a new round of aid for the beleaguered nation.

Amidst this onslaught of bad news, the White House is in full damage control. For example, press secretary Karoline Leavitt – spinmeister extraordinaire – is dancing around the phrasing in Bondi’s earlier statements on Epstein’s client list like Margot Fonteyn in Swan Lake. Meanwhile, Trump’s latest social media posts indicate he’s playing the loyalty card with his supporters, too, hoping to quell choppy seas as he heads into a mid-term election year with majorities in both houses of Congress dangling by the thinnest of threads.

Trump does have one card left to play, though. As pissed off as many in MAGA are right now – with no end to their anger on the immediate horizon – where else do they have to go? Discontented though they may be right now, the base would cut off its right arm before supporting woke Democrats. Trump knows that. He knows that while they may be unhappy, his backers ultimately aren’t going anywhere.

Although that’s not stopping some from offering them options…

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…

J. Mark Powell is an award-winning former TV journalist, government communications veteran, and a political consultant. He is also an author and an avid Civil War enthusiast. Got a tip or a story idea for Mark? Email him at mark@fitsnews.com.

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