Reports of a MAGA civil war over Iran are greatly exaggerated

Donald Trump’s war against Iran lasted 40 days, with a fragile ceasefire set to expire April 22. The president and his handlers convinced themselves it would be a lightning war. This did not happen.

He also believed the war would have a rally-round-the-flag effect, buoying his historically low poll numbers. Instead, the opposite happened: poll after poll shows that a majority of Americans oppose the war, and they blame Trump for the spike in gas prices, inflation, and other harm he has caused the economy. A new Zogby poll reports that 48% of likely voters are “ashamed” that he is president.

This has led many political observers to conclude that the failed war against Iran signals one more step toward the end of Trump’s presidency. The term “MAGA civil war” is being bandied by outlets from the New Republic and the BBC to the Daily Beast and Forbes after MAGA influencers including Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens and Alex Jones, who were once counted among Trump’s most staunch supporters, turned against him over his administration’s actions in Iran after he had promised “America First” and no more “stupid foreign wars.” 

On Sunday, Trump opened another potential schism when he shared an artificial intelligence-generated image on Truth Social depicting him as Jesus Christ, which attracted criticism on the right and led some high-profile evangelicals to declare his behavior blasphemous. He has also attacked Pope Leo XIV, accusing him of being weak on crime and bad for the Catholic Church, and attacking him for opposing the war against Iran. 

Coupled with the president’s dismal economic numbers, and unrest stemming from naked corruption, assaults on the rule of law and cruel mass deportations, some have declared that the walls are closing in, and that Trump is in danger of losing his MAGA coalition altogether.

We have heard that declaration many times over the past decade — and as before, it is a premature conclusion. Trump’s base remains rock solid, and the supposed MAGA civil war, and its impact on the GOP’s rank-and-file voters, is greatly exaggerated.

A recent NBC poll showed that Trump’s self-identified MAGA followers are near unanimous in their support of the war. Contrary to some claims that Republicans are fleeing Trump over the war, a new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll shows his support at 79%, a decline of nearly 6% from February. Non-MAGA Republicans and self-identified independents disapprove of Trump’s attacks on Iran by a much larger margin of approximately 34% and  57%, respectively, according to a recent YouGov/Economist poll. 

As a group, the mainstream media and political class continue to believe that the old rules apply — a fundamental and fatal misunderstanding of how the average American actually thinks about politics. With some notable exceptions, most American voters do not weigh wars, conflicts or foreign relations heavily in their voting and other political decision-making; a 2024 Pew Research Center report found that 83% of Americans want the president to prioritize domestic policy over foreign policy. So-called bread-and-butter issues, such as jobs and the economy, repeatedly rank much higher than foreign matters.

President George W. Bush was reelected in 2004 while the United States was mired in an unpopular forever war in Iraq that resulted in thousands of Americans dead and wounded. The war cost Bush some votes on the margins — around 2% of the popular vote — but it was not enough to alter the outcome at that point, as Bush was able to reframe the invasion of Iraq as part of a broader War on Terror following 9/11.

The average American is largely ignorant about the complexities of foreign policy. Instead, they rely upon partisanship and cues from elites and other trusted voices. Wars and conflicts only matter to the public when they drag on and casualties mount — such as during the anti-Bush wave that returned Democrats to power in the House and Senate in the 2006 midterms — or when they hit home personally or financially. There are anecdotes about Trump voters being upset, for example, about rising gas prices. (On Wednesday, the national average was $4.11 a gallon, according to AAA.) But the president’s supporters have shown a remarkable willingness to tolerate pain in supporting their leader. Moreover, anecdotes are not systematic data, and people vote and make political decisions for a range of reasons, including emotions and principles, that are not purely material or rational.

Carlson, Owens, Kelly and Jones are not rank-and-file Trump supporters. To confuse MAGA elites like them with the average MAGA voter, or even Trump-Republican voters, is an error — and potentially a very costly one. While these MAGA media personalities collectively have tens of millions of people who follow them, that is not necessarily the same as real political power.

A truism exists among the media and political classes that the “Joe Rogan effect” and manosphere helped the president win the 2024 election, and research from the University of Sydney in Australia suggests that Trump’s use of podcasts may have increased his support by 1% to 3%. In a close election, that number matters. But it does not yet represent a generational change in voting behavior or thinking.

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Moreover, many of those new Trump voters were likely instead “Trump-curious” — nihilists who enjoy playing the spoiler, or protest voters who will drop out of politics if they do not immediately see the change they hoped for. (In fact, this dynamic is already taking place as Trump is rapidly losing the support of young men, first-time voters, independents, Hispanics and Latinos, and others who voted for him in 2024.)

Ultimately, what a given influencer feels and believes about Trump and Iran or some other issue tells us only what they believe, and not necessarily what their followers and audience do.

Many have gravitated to the MAGA civil war narrative because it has compelling characters, drama and clear conflict, and for Americans looking for hope in a dark time, it makes them feel good. But that is fundamentally different from a rigorous, empirically-grounded conclusion about mass political behavior.

As NPR’s senior political editor Domenico Montanaro recently explained: “We’ve seen some influencers in the MAGA sphere speak out against the war, but that’s not the majority of rank-and-file Republicans — never has been and probably never will be.”

Then there is a repeated argument that has hardened into something of a mantra among some prominent voices — such as James Carville — who have taken to saying things like: “Donald Trump promised no more foreign wars!” “The attacks on Iran and Venezuela show that he is a hypocrite!” “His MAGA followers must be ashamed!” “The GOP is going to lose big because of this!”

This reasoning assumes a healthy, functioning democracy where politicians earn trust and legitimacy, and then are held accountable for betraying it. But Trumpism is an authoritarian personality cult. The president has total contempt for democracy and accountability, but his MAGA people and other supporters are psychologically adhered to him and the movement. He is a core part of their identity, which means they will change their beliefs and twist reality to justify his behavior and resolve the cognitive dissonance. Social psychologists describe this phenomenon as “post hoc” or “motivated reasoning.”

A theme that often emerges among focus groups with Trump voters is a belief that he is following through on his campaign promises. In a January 2026 focus group conducted by the New York Times with pro-Trump voters, repeated responses included some version of “Everything that he’s said, he’s doing” and “He’s definitely been doing a lot of the things he said he was going to do” — even though this cannot be easily reconciled with facts and reality. The economy, for example, is in a poor state, despite his bragging during the 2024 campaign that he would return America to a new “golden age.”

What many centrists, institutionalists and other such voices still struggle to understand is that in fascism and other antidemocratic political projects, power justifies itself. MAGA — and the larger conservative movement — is a form of religious politics driven by faith and will as opposed to reason or principle.

Writing in Reason, Steven Greenhut observed that “MAGA’s philosophical twists and turns are hard to follow given that whenever Donald Trump changes his mind, his supporters have three go-to approaches. First, they claim his latest notion is part of a 3D chess game even if, by all appearances, Trump would struggle to play one-level tic-tac-toe. Second, they distract our attention: Didn’t Barack Obama do this, too? Third, they get with the program and shamelessly back whatever the president is doing.”

The midterm elections are just over six months away, and in that time, almost anything can and likely will happen.

Trump and his right-wing propaganda machine — albeit likely without Carlson, Kelly, Owens and Jones — will declare that the war against Iran is a great victory, proof of his strategic genius, another confirmation that America is “winning” again under his rule. And tens of millions of Americans will believe it and cast their ballots accordingly.

Yes, Trump is historically unpopular with the American people — but polls also show that the Democratic Party is also very unpopular. Among right-leaning independents and other parts of Trump’s wavering coalition, anger at the president does not necessarily translate into support for Democrats. They are likely to mimic Megyn Kelly who, after finding herself among the targets of Trump’s rage after she criticized him on Iran, said she would still vote for him even if he were to “drop a nuke,” because Democrats were worse.

The wave victories in off-year and special elections suggest that Democrats can win back the House, and perhaps even the Senate. But the party has a gift for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and there is much they can do to self-sabotage between now and November.

Pro-democracy Americans cannot and should not assume that the MAGA movement will self-destruct or succumb to political fratricide. That is wish-casting. Trump is a political survivor who has demonstrated a remarkable ability to confound conventional wisdom. His MAGA followers are devoted to him. 

Tens of millions of near-guaranteed votes are not everything. But in a highly-polarized political environment, they count for a lot.

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