{"id":18109,"date":"2026-11-09T15:44:56","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T07:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=18109"},"modified":"2026-11-09T15:45:06","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T07:45:06","slug":"trump-has-cost-us-after-midterm-losses-maga-asks-if-its-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=18109","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Trump has cost us\u2019: After midterm losses, MAGA asks if it\u2019s over"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As Republicans faced a nationwide drubbing in Tuesday\u2019s midterm elections, supporters streamed out of a Dallas ballroom where they\u2019d hoped to toast a win for US Senate candidate Ken Paxton, a favorite of President Donald Trump.
In the hotel bar, Michael Little, a 59-year-old businessman and three-time Trump voter, stared at the president\u2019s image on a television screen. \u201cPeople are pissed off at Trump. Trump has cost us,\u201d he said, capturing a sentiment rippling through the president\u2019s Make America Great Again movement after the Republican Party\u2019s worst electoral defeat in decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Across the coalition, some supporters who once viewed Trump as MAGA\u2019s greatest asset are beginning to question whether he\u2019s become its biggest liability.
The midterm losses amounted to more than a repudiation of Trump. They were a referendum on the political and cultural movement \u200bhe built. A defining force in American politics that began as a campaign slogan during Trump\u2019s 2016 presidential run now faces a potentially existential reckoning after voters disillusioned with soaring fuel prices, the Iran war and Washington corruption delivered Democrats decisive congressional majorities.
Trump\u2019s first major response to the midterms came on Friday. Instead of changing course, he doubled down on the movement\u2019s core. He promoted Stephen Miller, the main architect of the administration\u2019s \u200chardline immigration crackdown, to chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles. Wiles was seen as a stabilizing force inside an often chaotic White House.

The move was celebrated by some of MAGA\u2019s most ardent influencers, who saw it as a return to the anti-immigration agenda at the movement\u2019s roots. \u201cExactly the energy we need,\u201d right-wing influencer Benny Johnson posted on X to his 4.1 million followers. \u201cSolid move. It\u2019s Miller Time.\u201d
The White House did not directly answer Reuters’ questions about why Republicans lost, the defeat of candidates who embraced Trump’s false 2020 election claims, or where MAGA goes from here. Instead, it pointed to Trump’s remarks on Wednesday, when he said, “If I were on the ballot, we would have won.” He also said it was “largely true” that the Iran war had cost Republicans because “it drove the gasoline up,” but that he\u2019d do it again.
For nearly a decade, MAGA has reshaped the Republican Party and transformed national debates on issues such as trade, immigration, race and gender. The movement installed loyalists throughout federal agencies, cracked down on immigration and pressured corporations and public institutions to retreat from diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. MAGA survived the fallout from the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol and propelled Trump back to the White House. In Trump\u2019s second term, MAGA was \u200bno longer a faction of the Republican Party; it was the party.

Now, the Democrats\u2019 sweeping victory has forced the movement to grapple with an unexpected question: Is MAGA over?
Reuters interviews with more than a dozen MAGA activists, influencers, party strategists, Christian nationalist leaders and researchers who track right-wing politics, along with a review of MAGA supporters’ posts and podcasts since Tuesday, show a movement turning its anger on itself.
The stolen-election claims that have driven MAGA since Democrat Joe Biden beat Trump in \u200bthe 2020 presidential election have mostly gone quiet. Instead, supporters are blaming Republican leaders and Trump’s advisers, and in some cases the president himself, for broken promises on living costs, the Iran war and the government\u2019s decision to redact or withhold major portions of its investigative files on late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
MAGA\u2019s factions also disagree about what comes next. Some want a return to \u2060populist and nationalist basics. Some want a movement less tied to one man. And a vocal minority say MAGA is already dead.
\u201cWe have to rebuild,\u201d Steve Bannon, a prominent MAGA proponent, podcaster and former Trump White House adviser, told Reuters. He urged the party to double down on an aggressive populist and nationalist agenda and praised Trump for elevating Miller. \u201cMiller’s appointment as chief of staff underpins my point,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is no more hardcore MAGA proponent than Stephen.\u201d
As pro-Trump internet forums digested the election results, a notable slice of self-described MAGA \u200bloyalists \u2013 more than 20% \u2013 raised doubts about the movement\u2019s leadership and direction, according to an analysis of social media traffic done for Reuters by PeakMetrics, a data intelligence firm. About half of that cohort remained supportive of the MAGA movement but no longer backed Trump as its leader. The other half remained loyal to, though critical of, the president himself.
The analysis was based on 12,850 posts sampled from a universe of 4.6 million Trump-related comments on X and Reddit from 9 p.m. on Election Day to 8 p.m. the next evening. It \u200bfound broad concern among MAGA supporters as the results became clear. Of the posts that assigned blame for the rout, nearly a third said concerns about the Iran war and Israel\u2019s influence over US policy had overshadowed Trump\u2019s message. A quarter said Republicans not fully committed to the MAGA agenda had undermined the movement.
The results left Trump facing large Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress. Democrats could hold as many as 56 of the Senate’s 100 seats, more than enough to block his judicial nominees. They will also hold governorships in all seven battleground states Trump won in 2024, and they swept every statewide race in Texas, which last backed a Democrat for president in 1976.
Some prominent Republicans, long wary of a MAGA base that punished dissent, have begun openly criticizing Trump.
Republican US Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said on Saturday that corruption was present in \u201call branches of government,\u201d including \u201cI\u2019m sad to say, within the Trump administration.\u201d He cited Calley Means, a former White House adviser who told “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast on Friday that Trump’s top aides catered to special interests and blocked policies popular with Trump\u2019s Make America Healthy Again movement. Voters “were expecting us to drain the swamp, but it seems like the swamp won,” Johnson told \u200bFox News.
Asked about Johnson’s remarks and Means’ accusations, White House spokesperson Allison Schuster did not address the corruption allegations, saying Trump had “made incredible strides to Make America Healthy Again.”
On Sunday, Republican US Representative Marlin Stutzman of Indiana, who won reelection despite his party’s losses, called Trump\u2019s promotion of Miller a \u201cbad mistake.\u201d \u201cYou don\u2019t promote those who were in charge,\u201d Stutzman told CNN. \u201cHe\u2019s not liked out here in the Midwest by people. They don\u2019t like his tone,\u201d he said of Miller.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Republicans faced a nationwide drubbing in Tuesday\u2019s midterm elections, supporters streamed out of a Dallas ballroom where they\u2019d hoped to toast a win for US Senate candidate Ken Paxton, a favorite of President Donald Trump.In the hotel bar, Michael Little, a 59-year-old businessman and three-time Trump voter, stared at the president\u2019s image on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":18110,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1906,3251,1724],"class_list":["post-18109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-he","tag-movement","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018Trump has cost us\u2019: After midterm losses, MAGA asks if it\u2019s over - LISTEN WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=18109\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018Trump has cost us\u2019: After midterm losses, MAGA asks if it\u2019s over - 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