Opinion: Look out — Republicans are defecting from Trump’s MAGA army in droves

Prior to President Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential contest, Democrats were heading into their national convention in Chicago with all the joy of a funeral procession. So concerned were party bigwigs about a possible floor challenge to Biden’s renomination, they even floated the possibility of holding a virtual nomination vote nearly a full month ahead of the main event.

Now, Vice President Harris’s unexpected rise to the top of the Democratic ticket has done more than just rekindle Democratic enthusiasm ahead of a make-or-break campaign. With over 15,000 journalists on hand , Harris has turned her party’s nominating convention into a must-cover media event unlike any since Barack Obama’s 2008 media frenzy.

All that focus on Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, has left the GOP’s Donald Trump and JD Vance feeling the political chill. Trump has been sitting out much of the August campaign season, while Vance struggles with his deepening unpopularity among key swing voters. For the first time in this campaign, the Republican ticket looks weak and directionless.

Now some of Trump’s former allies have apparently seen enough.

The cracks in Trump’s political dam widened into a steady leak this week after former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) announced that she would cast her ballot for Harris in November. “After January 6, after Donald Trump has refused for four years to acknowledge that he lost, and his threats against democracy — I think it’s important to turn the page,” Comstock told CNN over the weekend .

Trump isn’t likely to shed any tears over Comstock, who has been a consistent critic since losing her congressional seat in 2018. More concerning is how Trump’s allies on the conservative side and on the far right are increasingly shredding the former president in public, with some going so far as to endorse Harris.

Even critics of retired federal appeals court Judge J. Michael Luttig don’t doubt his sterling conservative credentials. The former jurist rose to the federal bench under President George H.W. Bush and remains a leading mind in the conservative legal movement. He’s also endorsing Harris over Trump, making 2024 the first time Luttig has ever cast a ballot for a Democratic candidate. He, too, cites Trump’s unique threats to the democratic order.

“There is only one political party and one candidate for the presidency that can claim the mantle of defender and protector of America’s democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law,” Luttig wrote in a statement . “I will unhesitatingly vote for the Democratic Party’s candidate …Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris.”

Then there’s the far right, terminally online influencers who make up the beating heart of the MAGA movement. Those mostly young political movers include figures like neo–Nazi Nick Fuentes, who was once friendly enough with Trump to score a dinner invitation to Mar-a-Lago. Now Fuentes is casting doubt on the former president, saying he predicts a “ catastrophic loss ” for Trump and the GOP in November.

Likewise for long-time Trump ally and right-wing performance artist Laura Loomer, who rose to fame in part by riding Trump’s media coattails. “Have you noticed how weak so many of the Trump surrogates sound on TV?” Loomer asked in a post on X . “Needs to change FAST because we can’t talk about a stolen election for another four years.”

All of that criticism from former Trump loyalists has other MAGA culture warriors weaving conspiracy theories to explain away Trump’s weakness. Far-right podcaster Brenden Dilley used his platform to accuse Fuentes of being — of all possible things — a secret Democratic operative paid by the Harris campaign. The mind truly reels at the thought.

It’s bad enough that Trump’s lieutenants are all at each other’s throats with less than three months to go until Election Day. What’s worse is that the apparent dissolution of MAGA’s fragile alliances has come at the same time that Harris and Democrats are unifying in a way not seen in decades. It isn’t just that the MAGA movement isn’t projecting a united front in the final stretch of a critical campaign — it’s that the ego-driven personalities on the far-right make any such unity functionally impossible.

The flurry of activity among Trump’s battling surrogates stands in sharp contrast to the devil-may-care attitude down at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump has spent much of August instead of actually campaigning. Trump now contents himself with griping about the advisers he hired and the campaign managers he selected, and recently brought back disgraced political consultant Corey Lewandowski to serve as a sort of General of the Armies for his warring campaign team .

Instead of focusing on the presidential race, Trump’s senior staff are now busy updating their resumes ahead of an expected mass-firing. That will leave Trump with plenty of free time this week to watch Harris and Democrats kick off a convention that will dominate the news cycle and push him even further from the headlines.

So much for The Trump Show.

Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies.

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