The question has often been asked throughout Donald Trump’s political career: What happens to the MAGA movement once Trump is permanently out of office?
Will future Republican standard-bearers feel the need to keep the MAGA movement going, or will doing so forever put them in Trump’s shadow?
President Donald Trump meets with Vice President JD Vance and national security advisers on Ukraine, Monday, March 3, 2025, in the Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)
President Donald Trump participates in a Board of Peace meeting at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., Thursday, February 19, 2026. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)
And with Trump the least popular he’s ever been, is that even a legacy that the GOP wants at this point?
The Republican Party was crushed in the midterm elections on Tuesday, losing their majorities in both houses of Congress, after an election that was widely seen as a repudiation of Trump’s second presidency.
Now, Trump’s presidency has a ticking clock, likely to coincide with two years of Congressional investigations and a soon-to-launch presidential campaign that, on the Republican side, will likely center on how the GOP views the pro-Trump future.
How do the MAGA faithful view the movement going forward?
Reuters looked at that question this week, finding that while some view Trump as having betrayed the movement’s core tenets, others believe doubling down on faith in Trump is the only way forward.
The New MAGA Moment
Reuters, in part, took the temperature of the movement at Ken Paxton’s election night party, after the Trump-endorsed candidate for U.S. Senate went down to defeat by Democrat James Talerico, in the first Democratic win in a Senate race in that state in a generation.
They spoke to “MAGA activists, influencers, party strategists, Christian nationalist leaders and researchers who track right-wing politics,” and found that after last Tuesday, the MAGA movement is “turning its anger on itself.”
“People are [expletive] off at Trump. Trump has cost us,” Michael Little, a businessman who voted for the president three times, told the news agency.
Others interviewed by Reuters blamed Trump’s staffers and other leaders in the party, whom they blame for such broken promises as Trump failing to deal with the high cost of living and for launching a foreign war.
The election results, Reuters said, were “a referendum on the political and cultural movement” that Trump has built since launching his first presidential campaign in 2015.
However, that movement “now faces a potentially existential reckoning,” after the midterm losses, amid major fissures within the movement about the Iran War, support for Israel, tariffs, and other actions taken by the president in the first two years of his second term.
Doubling Down?
Trump first appeared to double down on the ethos of the last two years, promoting Stephen Miller to White House chief of staff.
An immigration hardliner and Trump ultra-loyalist, Miller is one of the few key staffers who have worked for Trump throughout his two presidencies.
However, in an interview on 60 Minutes that aired on Sunday night, after the Reuters story was published, Trump told Ross Douthat that he thinks his immigration policy may have been too harsh, and that he was open to negotiating an immigration reform package with the new Democratic Congressional majority.
One Republican member of Congress, per Reuters, expressed unhappiness with the promotion for Miller.
Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN), who was re-elected last week, gave an on-the-record quote about not liking the chief of staff change.
“You don’t promote those who were in charge,” the Congressman said on CNN over the weekend. “He’s not liked out here in the Midwest by people. They don’t like his tone.”
Republicans will face a tough road going forward.
Democrats will have majorities in both houses of Congress, and they’re not slim majorities like the one the GOP had in the House after recapturing it in the midterms four years ago.
Also, Democrats captured numerous governorships and now hold the governor’s mansion in all seven of the major battleground states in 2024.
Starting next year, Democrats will control the governorships in nine of the ten largest states in the country, except Florida.
Not Stolen
The Reuters report also noted that unlike after Trump’s loss in 2020, there has been little appetite among Trump himself, other Republican elected officials, or top MAGA influencers to claim the midterm elections were stolen, although some minor X accounts have been pushing bogus claims about algorithmic fraud.
However, on Monday morning, Trump did post on social media questioning the election’s legitimacy.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
