An excellent post by Scott Greer, Misunderstanding The MAGA Base. This echoes my sentiments exactly:
While the MAGA base is interested in the Epstein case, these folks aren’t ready to turn on Trump over it. Polls show Republicans sticking with Trump, even if they’re not happy with how the Epstein case was handled. It’s not rated as a critically important issue to the majority of Republicans. Many influencers argued Epstein would DESTROY MAGA and ensured Republicans would lose the midterms and the next presidential election. Polls don’t bear out that view.
That’s usually not the case. Take the Iran strikes and views of MLK. When Trump bombed Iran, the onlinesphere declared the action would turn away his core voters. But, as previously mentioned, the strongest level support for the strikes came from MAGA Republicans. The base isn’t composed of rabid neocons, but they also don’t share the Online Right’s committed non-interventionism. If Trump wants to attack an alleged enemy of America, MAGA can be persuaded into supporting it.
Similar to Iran, Trump’s poor handling of the Epstein situation is not a dealbreaker for his base. Voters want transparency, but the failure of Trump to deliver on this, will not dissuade voters either. Non-interventionism has bever been that popular among conservatives broadly, even if it’s a popular stance online. To maximize support, Trump is smart to focus on easy wins that have strong symbolic value, even if they do not move the needle much long term policy-wise.
When commenters, like on Twitter, start their objections with the words “Trump needs to…”, Trump doesn’t really need to do that much, being a lane duck. As long as the economy is doing well, his favorability should remain high among his supporters leading into the 2028 election, as the economy has always been among the most important issues for voters. This is why Trump front-loaded the tariffs instead of waiting until later in his term. The last thing he wants is for the stock market and economy to suffer leading into an election year or midterms, which plays into the hands of the left and was entirely his doing.