Posted on 11/13/2025 10:04:29 AM PST by MtnClimber
The internal conflict over the future of the MAGA movement is described as a generational divide: On one side are the boomers, the Republican Party’s old guard that attached itself to Donald Trump’s winning agenda, and on the other side are the Zoomers, the rising generation of conservatives angry that, in their view, the president has betrayed his own movement. The split is anything but organic. Rather, it’s the intended result of a campaign waged by a revisionist faction determined to seize control of MAGA, and the Republican Party, by erasing Trump.
The fight has been simmering on social media since the 2024 election but recently jumped to a different venue: the nominally staid environment of Washington, D.C., think tanks. At the end of October, The Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts released a three-minute video that opened with him defending the right of Christians to “critique” Israel without being called antisemitic. The broadside seemed to come out of the blue—given that critics of Israel routinely lament that they’re not allowed to criticize Israel, what specific incident had inspired Roberts’ exhortation? It wasn’t until a minute or so into the video that the context became clear.
“We will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda,” said Roberts. “That includes Tucker Carlson, who remains and, as I have said before, always will be a close friend of The Heritage Foundation.”
Roberts was responding to criticism of Carlson after a recent episode of his podcast in which he interviewed Nick Fuentes, king of the “Groypers,” an informal association of disaffected, mostly young men who exercise their grievances through attacking (only rhetorically, to date) women, minorities, and their chief target, Jews. Because Carlson failed to push back on Fuentes for praising Hitler as well as Stalin—and because Carlson himself attacked evangelicals, including Trump’s Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, for supporting Israel—he was accused of mainstreaming his guest and right-wing antisemitism.
But even with the context, Roberts’ message seemed random. There’s no evidence that anyone outside of Heritage pressured the think tank to end its relationship with the former Fox News host. It was when the internal debate at Heritage spilled into public view that it became clear Roberts was defending his own position at least as much as Carlson’s right of critique. One of the internal flashpoints, presumably, was the $1.2 million Heritage reportedly spent sponsoring Carlson’s show between June 2024 and June 2025. It’s still not clear whether Roberts used unrestricted donations to pay Carlson or whether a particular donor laundered payments through Heritage to fund a podcaster whose obsession with Jews and the Jewish state might cause a patron some public embarrassment.
Indeed, even Roberts has been aware of Carlson’s compulsion for some time. The think tank head indicated in a Heritage town hall several days after the video that he’d signaled his displeasure with Carlson after his controversial interview with podcaster Darryl Cooper. During the show, the popular historian expounded on his revisionist account of WWII, its causes and effects (Hitler mistakenly blundered into the final solution), its heroes and villains (Churchill was the bad guy). It’s essentially the same thesis that Pat Buchanan laid out in his 2008 book Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War”—which can hardly come as a surprise since Buchanan’s political and intellectual legacy is at the core of the current conflict.
“I guess he’s an antisemite,” Trump said of Buchanan when he was vying with him for the 2000 Reform Party nomination. “He doesn’t like the Blacks, he doesn’t like the gays,” said Trump. “It’s just incredible that anybody could embrace this guy.”
Trump reportedly apologized to Buchanan in 2011 for what he’d said a decade earlier, but Buchanan fans have a long memory. In Roberts’ now infamous statement, apparently written for him by his now former chief of staff, he referred to those objecting to Carlson’s slurs against Jews and evangelicals as a “venomous coalition,” thus evoking a 1991 Anti-Defamation League report titled “Anger on the Right: Pat Buchanan’s Venomous Crusade.”
Buchanan’s disciples believe they are waging a counterinsurgency just like his and against the same breed of phony conservatives to retake the movement that they rightly own. In their view, Buchanan is MAGA’s George Washington.
“Buchanan didn’t just predict the challenges we face today; he laid the intellectual foundation for the America First resurgence that has redefined our politics,” Roberts wrote on X in August. “From his time as a speechwriter in the Nixon administration to his founding of The American Conservative in 2002, Buchanan never stopped fighting for America’s forgotten men and women. That’s the reason I volunteered for his campaign in 1992, and that’s why today I’m eager to recommend him for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Honoring him would not only recognize his extraordinary contributions but also send a powerful message: the era of globalism is over, and the future belongs to those who put America first.”
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I see the left of trying to cause a rift to splinter the MAGA movement.
Seems to me the Party is waging an internal civil war, to see whether radical MAGA/populists will survive in the GOP, or if it will revert to DC-Beltway deep-state control.
The establishment deep state is losing in both parties. One from the right and the other from the left. And losers like Tucker and Fuentes are insignificant bomb throwers.
This is so wrong Boomers = RINOs.
The 1980s called.
They want their losers back!
Fuentes once said “Muslims left America alone before Israel was founded.” To appear balanced, Carlson might have asked him to Google Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates.
Doesn’t get close to the REAL dichotomy of “MAGA”.
Trump, the originator of the term and concept “MAGA” (Make America Great Again) truly love America, wants to retore her, but thinks gov’t is the answer.
However, the road to MAGA is actually just the opposite. America became a great nation through and after the 1800’s PRECISELY because of individual and marketplace freedom from unconstitutional gov’t. Gov’t spending in the 1800’s was around 5-6% GDP and was in deep background in the average person’s life.
We need to DISMANTLE the 80%+, $3+ trillion unconstitutional portion of the federal gov’t. NOW!!!
All of this is at a very small fringe of “MAGA” and of the GOP. It is not really an “internal MAGA debate”. As folks like Fuentes attached themselves to “MAGA” at some point, not the other way around.
The real problem seems to be Heritage’ conflict of interest with its financial support for Carlson, who at no time could be said to be a real proponent of most Heritage Positions. What did Heritage think it was buying for its support of Carlson and was it that financial support that caused Heritage leader to defend Carlson uncritically.
Lee Smith is the guy who farts and then leaves the room.
not a good or accurate article.
MAGA needs to eliminate RINo’s and neocon warmongers like Lindy Graham and Cornyn.Murkowski , et al
Mcconnell should have been gone long ago.
Buchanon was good.
#MAGA
“Seems to me the Party is waging an internal civil war”
Its not; this is all at the fringe, but some forces coming from somewhere are trying convert, and subvert the Carlson/Fuentes debate into a giant “internal rift” that it is not.
Pat Buchanan is nothing but a talk show gadfly with delusions of grandeaur
JOOS!
Do you mean the Buchanan, or Trump?
Trump was very very clear about Buchanan, he despised him and called him a loser.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_82hWkTJEGc
Failed Presidential Candidates Buchanan and Paul.
Expecting Angelino97 to show up here to proffer his candidates … so I’m preempting.
They are RINOS=Democrats. But its the democrat party that is truly going down in flames at this moment! So fun to watch!
You are correct. It is a hoax, but unfortunately, hoaxes have become the prominent genre lately.
Pat Buchanan...speaking of the original anti-Israel candidate.
I figured he was nearing 100 as he was missing brain cells when he ran for President.
Yes they are at a 100% loss and no ideas on what to do about anything they are the Titanic.
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