Simmering tensions between far-right factions burst into public view over the weekend, as prominent conservative voices at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest event took nearly as many rhetorical shots at one another as they did at their opponents on the left.
As The New York Times summarized, “Driving the enmity have been some of the most explosive and unresolved issues confronting the MAGA movement: resurgent antisemitism, the prevalence of conspiracy theories and the rise of the concept of ‘heritage Americans’ and what that concept — considered by some to be a thinly veiled racist dog-whistle — means for nonwhite conservatives.”
It was amid this turmoil that JD Vance headlined the event in Phoenix, saying early on in his remarks that he didn’t want to exclude any of the factions on the right, no matter how much they might oppose each other.
“When I say that I’m gonna fight alongside of you, I mean all of you — each and every one,” the Ohio Republican said. “President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless, self-defeating purity tests. He says ‘Make America Great Again’ because every American is invited.”
Vance added, “If you love America, if you want all of us to be richer, stronger, safer and prouder, you have a home on this team. I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to de-platform. … We have far more important work to do than canceling each other.”
The remarks were seen by some as evidence of the vice president’s choice not to take sides in the intraparty dispute among ostensible MAGA loyalists. That’s not quite how I saw it. In fact, when Vance insisted that the United States is a “Christian nation,” endorsed the importance of far-right conspiracy theories and added that people “don’t have to apologize for being white anymore,” he left little doubt as to which contingents of the conservative movement he was aligned with.
The other highlight was the vice president’s curious description of Trump’s philosophy, which bore little resemblance to the president’s actual political praxis.
To hear Vance tell it, Trump envisions a big tent, where conservatives need not worry about passing “purity tests” to join his “team.” And it was at roughly this point when I had to wonder whether the vice president has ever actually met the president. Just in recent weeks, Trump has done what he’s done repeatedly over the last decade: He announced which Republicans have failed to meet his standards and therefore deserve his condemnation. If Vance has any doubts about this, I’d refer him to Republicans in Indiana’s state Senate, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia (whom the president continues to refer to as “Marjorie Traitor Brown”), Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky — all ostensibly allies in the same party as Trump and his vice president. “We have far more important work to do than canceling each other”? Perhaps, but Trump, fixated on retaliating against anyone who fails to satisfy his demand for obedience, has waged a long and unsubtle political war against members of his own party who’ve strayed from his partisan script. Either Vance hasn’t paid close enough attention to recent events or he thought it’d be a good idea to advocate for an inclusive philosophy that the president has chosen fundamentally to reject.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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