How MAGA Is Collapsing in Public View

Behind me stands a recreation of the tent where Charlie Kirk lost his life at Utah University last September. It is not a memorial in the traditional sense. People are lining up to take selfies in front of it. That fact alone is disturbing enough that it almost defies commentary. Yet it perfectly captures the surreal, decaying state of the movement that once revolved around him.

Charlie Kirk is being elevated to near-mythic status by his followers. And while I will not excuse or sanitize who he was, one uncomfortable truth has become increasingly clear since his death: if anyone within MAGA had the ability to carry the movement forward after Donald Trump, it was probably Charlie Kirk. Not because he was extraordinary, but because everyone else is painfully incapable.

He would never have matched Trump’s dominance. Once a cult ends, it does not simply transfer leadership. But Kirk had enough charisma, enough rhetorical rhythm, and enough organizational control to potentially reshape the movement into something else. Without him, MAGA is leaderless—and it shows.

At the most recent Turning Point USA event, the cracks were impossible to hide. The infighting is no longer behind closed doors. It is happening on stage, on camera, and in real time. Grinder crashes aside, the real collapse is ideological and personal. These people are no longer fighting their opponents. They are eating each other.

Ben Shapiro’s speech at the event was a perfect example of how detached the leadership class has become from the audience it helped radicalize. Standing before a crowd built on years of conspiracy theories and grievance politics, Shapiro suddenly discovered the importance of “truth.”

He warned that victory without truth is meaningless, that unity without truth is hollow, and that the conservative movement is threatened by charlatans trafficking in conspiracies and dishonesty.

The irony was staggering.

Where exactly has Ben Shapiro been for the last decade? MAGA was never built on truth. Donald Trump exposed that from day one. Lies, gaslighting, projection, and conspiracy were not bugs in the system—they were the system. The movement began with birtherism and metastasized from there. Turning Point USA itself was built on those same foundations.

To now scold figures like Candace Owens for conspiracy-mongering is absurd. This is what MAGA has always been. The difference now is that the internal power struggle has begun, and the knives are out.

That reality became undeniable when Steve Bannon followed Shapiro’s remarks by calling him a “cancer.” Not metaphorically—explicitly. Bannon accused Shapiro of trying to take over Breitbart, attempting to seize control of David Horowitz’s organizations, and plotting to move on Turning Point USA out of envy for Charlie Kirk.

This is not a movement debating ideas. This is a collapsing empire fighting over scraps.

I was once told by the owner of a struggling bar that the worst thing you can do when business is bad is announce it publicly. If you beg for an audience, you look weak. People stop showing up. That lesson applies perfectly here. MAGA leaders keep insisting everything is fine while publicly tearing each other apart. No one wants to attend a rally where the speakers spend more time attacking one another than articulating a vision.

They are scrambling to figure out who leads next—and the answer is no one.

Erica Kirk cannot lead. The remaining figures lack charisma, credibility, or coherence. And then there is Tim Pool, one of the most unintentionally comedic figures in the space. Watching him now threaten to leave MAGA “if this continues” would be funny if it weren’t so revealing.

After January 6th, after years of defending Trump, after amplifying Kremlin talking points, after watching democracy erode in real time—now he has had enough? Because Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro can’t get along?

That isn’t principle. That is cowardice arriving a decade late.

Anyone who stood by Donald Trump after January 6th no longer has a serious argument. Voting for him in 2016 is understandable. Voting again out of complacency in 2020 is at least explainable. But sticking with him after the insurrection, after felony convictions, after sexual abuse verdicts, after the reckless handling of classified material, and after watching what he has done since regaining power—there is no moral high ground left to claim.

This movement did not suddenly break. It has been broken for years. The only difference now is that the glue holding it together—Trump and Charlie Kirk—is gone or fading. What remains is chaos, resentment, and a public unraveling.

So let them take selfies under that tent. Let them turn on one another. Let them pretend this collapse came out of nowhere.

The rest of us have been calling this out for over a decade—and now, finally, everyone else can see it too.