Previously, she was called a “cultist”. The word for those who see Donald Trump as a kind of messiah rather than a president. She was said to be lost in the conspiracy theories of Qanon oddballs. We skipped over her embarrassing moments, when this tall blonde, looking like she was chewing imaginary gum, openly flirted with ridicule. Marjorie Taylor Greene had pushed the scale of adulation very high among Trump supporters by showing up at the last State of the Union speech given by Joe Biden, in 2024, wearing a MAGA cap. Patatras! The Georgia congresswoman announced yesterday that she would resign from Congress in January. A shock, as it symbolized the heart of “America First”, fiercely hostile to the neoconservatives.
“If MAGA Inc pushes me aside to make room for neocons, Big Pharma, Big Tech, the military-industrial complex, foreign leaders, or the donor elite cut off from the real country, then that means it’s ordinary Americans themselves who have been pushed aside.”she wrote in a letter published yesterday on her social networks. “Great news for the country”simply commented on Trump.
It’s been a few weeks since the one the president now called ” Marjorie Traitor Greene » was no longer the good, somewhat fawning student of her champion. The congresswoman criticized him for turning away from the basic concerns of the base: inflation, certainly slowed but still real, rents still too high, purchasing power at half mast for the middle classes. “MTG” called into question its focus on foreign policy, out of step according to it with the social emergency of an America, still conservative, which feels all the more abandoned since Trump was their last hope. “Neanderthal Barbie” (another of her nicknames) mocked her pricing strategy, judging her “chaotic”and demanded that White House meetings cease to be parades of foreign heads of state while “the real country” suffocates.
The Epstein file
Next comes the file Trump hoped to keep buried: the Epstein list. Greene had signed the discharge petitionthis parliamentary weapon that we almost never draw, because it amounts to bypassing our own camp by forcing a blocked text to be debated and voted on in the hemicycle. By joining forces to demand the release of the Epstein files, Greene defied Trump and cornered Republicans, forcing them to choose between full transparency and obedience to the leader.
Trump resisted before capitulating, overplaying transparency: “ We have nothing to hide. » But the sanction had fallen. The president withdrew his support and floated the idea of financing an opponent in his own district.
Greene is not alone, however. Other figures gravitate around her, just as influential, if not more so. Tucker Carlson, for example. Long the unofficial voice of Trumpist America, the former Fox News star at the helm of his own podcast is now flirting with the limits of tolerability within the MAGA ecosystem. His anti-interventionist tropism, his violent criticism of support for Israel, his story of an America exhausted by the wars of others, all of this resonates with those whom Trump seeks to reconquer. Carlson is not calling for a breakup. But he asks the questions that annoy within the Republican Party. In his shadow, a constellation of influencers is also shaking the walls of the GOP. Some pour out without precaution… “We were promised America First, we have the impression of having America Later” : this refrain rises.
In certain segments of the electorate, it is even starting to weigh. The customs duties wanted by Trump to defend the American producer ended up hitting the consumer. The recent turnaround (removing or reducing tariffs on everyday products, including coffee and meat) has not gone unnoticed. Trump listens to the grumblings from behind the scenes and adjusts his policies accordingly. With a few hiccups.
Like these measures which were intended to be popular and which were experienced as a form of insult by those who count the dollars at the end of the month. Trump thought he was doing the right thing by proposing to extend mortgage credit to 50 years, supposedly “make access to property possible for all”. For a $200,000 loan at 6.5%, the monthly payment would go from $1,264 over 30 years to $1,127 over 50 years: just $137 less. However, in the other column, the one that White House communicators are careful not to highlight, interests explode: $255,000 over 30 years, compared to $476,000 over 50 years. Over $221,000 in additional debt for a meager grocery cart at Walmart each month. Not a gift, in a country where the age of first property purchase is now 40, a record.
Fear of downgrading
Same incomprehension for the customs dividend: a check for $2,000 promised to every American, financed by customs duties. A sort of patriotic allowance. Except that the average voter doesn’t care about this magic money; he wants to know how much his next TV will cost him made in China. Household morale is low. The consumer confidence index established this month by the University of Michigan fell to 50.3 (this is an index and not a percentage, Editor’s note), its lowest level since June 2022.
And as if that were not enough, two other measures have, in recent weeks, further shocked the Trumpist base: the relaxation of the H-1B visa for skilled workers and the announcement of a massive reception of students from China. In an interview on Fox News, Trump even added fuel to the fire. The journalist Laura Ingraham argued that there was in America “enough talented people”. Trump cut her off sharply: “ No, that’s not true. Some talents don’t exist here “.
Behind this quarrel lies the fear of downgrading. The famous H-1B, designed to attract “specialists”, is seen by some MAGA activists as a Trojan horse which offers Indian or Chinese engineers positions that local kids, those from high schools in Ohio or Tennessee, dream of occupying.
Added to this is the more explosive idea of welcoming up to 600,000 Chinese students to American universities. A figure that has upset more than one: not out of fear of competition, but because we see a new siphoning of resources. In this America, when we say “America comes first”we expect that university lecture halls, too, will bear the mark of this slogan. Not that they become a welcoming platform for the youth of Beijing or Shanghai.
Trump is a pragmatist: this is how he has built all his successes. He smells that characteristic smell of the approaching midterms, that scent of changing wind. In 2018, he still had the future ahead of him. In 2026, he will no longer have this chance. If he loses the House or, worse, if he sees the rural strongholds crumble to the point that the Senate also falls into the Democratic camp, post-Trump Trumpism will have lasted two years. He will not be able to run again in 2028. His legacy depends on the loyalty of a base that he knows is both passionate and tough and for whom the slightest misstep can sound like a betrayal.
