MAGA influencers reel after midterm rout of Trump’s Republicans

For years, influencers with the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement thrived alongside President Donald Trump.

But after Democrats hammered candidates from Trump’s Republican Party in last week’s midterm elections, the content creators find themselves facing questions over their ideological and financial futures.

“I’ve been running on empty for too long,” said conservative commentator Laura Loomer, a conspiracy theorist and confidante of Trump who announced last week she was taking a break from her podcast.

Samuel Woolley, a communication professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said post-midterm soul-searching would result in an inevitable “changing of the guard” among influencers espousing Trump’s nationalist views.

“I would expect that many influencers who worked with MAGA are going through an introspective period in the same way that many conservatives are,” Woolley told AFP.

Danielle Lee Tomson, a researcher at the University of Washington, said many prominent pro-Trump influencers were losing their appeal.

“A lot of these creators, like Laura Loomer or Mike Cernovich or even Jack Posobiec, they are now aging, they’re older millennials,” Tomson said, naming a few top influencers.

“They don’t have the same kind of novelty as they once did,” she added.

“Quite frankly, a lot of their message got boring.”

Underdogs

Ring-wing commentators like Posobiec, Tim Pool and Benny Johnson built their online audiences on a fiercely anti-establishment message.

But over time, their closeness with the Trump administration lent them an institutional air, having taken part in news conferences alongside the president and flying on his jet.

The midterms also put a spotlight on the waning momentum of top MAGA-aligned movements, such as youth organisation Turning Point USA, whose founder Charlie Kirk was shot dead last year.

Candidates backed by Turning Point were overwhelmingly defeated in last Tuesday’s Democratic “blue tsunami.”

Some pro-Trump influencers have opted to “reclaim that they’re underdogs” after the midterms rout, Tomson said, and lash out at the Republican Party rather than Trump.

Specifically, they have accused the party of alienating young, white, working-class, male MAGA supporters by pushing for war with Iran.

Others have cheered Stephen Miller’s appointment to White House chief of staff.

The combative Trump ultra-loyalist spearheaded the administration’s staunch anti-immigration policies and is seen as a return to the MAGA movement’s ideological roots.

Commentator Johnson called Miller’s ascension “a complete game-changer” and a “great move.”

Who writes the check?

Questions over money are also at the heart of the influencers’ futures.

Some have thrived not only by monetizing content, but also by receiving payments — often through opaque channels — from political funding organisations and lobby groups, Woolley said.

As social media personalities rely increasingly on an image of authenticity, some are now touting their independence as a way to stand out.

“Loyalty has shifted from the agenda to whoever is writing the check,” said Alex Bruesewitz, a media advisor often credited with helping Trump return to the White House.

Following the midterms, the consultant criticized Loomer for failing to disclose that she had been paid for making certain posts on X.

And in 2024, influencers such as Pool and Johnson were linked to a case in which the Justice Department accused Russia of paying right-wing content creators to spread pro-Moscow messages.

Woolley said social media companies are the “wild card” in the influencer ecosystem.

Tech giants like Meta and Google “have shown themselves completely willing to shift their behaviors and policies based upon who is in the White House,” he said.

So if sites like YouTube or TikTok took a more active stance on disinformation and hate speech, “it will change these influencers’ lives and change their behaviors,” he said.

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