Donald Trump´s relation to the far right or Alt Right have always been...complicated. Witness his oscillations in relation to Steven Bannon. Among other things! However, it seems we are very near a decisive turning point due to the (probably inevitable) Epstein fiasco. The hard right elements are incredulous and extremely disappointed at Trump´s handling of the case. Indeed, the POTUS has been "ratioed" at his own social media platform, Truth Social.
But this isn´t simply a decisive test for the Trump admimistration´s ability to harness far right support. It´s also a turning point for the far right itself. Now we will finally learn how strong *it* really is. Will it depart? If it does so, will MAGA split asunder? Or will the far right/conspiracist subculture turn out to be mostly irrelevant? And if so, how will this affect the future of social media? If "influencers" with a lot of clout on the web have zero traction IRL, doesn´t this affect the usefulness and authority of social media platforms?
As for Trump´s "base", most self-identified Trump supporters backed the president´s recent decision to bomb Iran´s nuclear facilities (obviously to aid the US ally Israel). So much for "isolationism"! But sure, I suppose they might also support closed borders and more protectionism. And Trump is still (kind of) pushing for those things. So it´s not immidiately obvious how this will end...
As for Bannon, he supposedly has access to 15 hours of interview material with Jeffrey Epstein himself (!)...some of it to be released next year as part of a documentary.
Oh.
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