{"id":15945,"date":"2025-11-22T18:16:39","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T18:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/a-world-turned-upside-down-maga-faithful-grapple-with-trumps-mamdani-lovefest-mtgs-downfall\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T18:16:39","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T18:16:39","slug":"a-world-turned-upside-down-maga-faithful-grapple-with-trumps-mamdani-lovefest-mtgs-downfall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/a-world-turned-upside-down-maga-faithful-grapple-with-trumps-mamdani-lovefest-mtgs-downfall\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A world turned upside down\u2019: MAGA faithful grapple with Trump\u2019s Mamdani lovefest, MTG\u2019s downfall"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Donald Trump has long claimed that he \u2014 and he alone \u2014 dictates the future of the MAGA movement. And a topsy-turvey Friday will put that to the test.<\/p>\n

A weekend wellness check on the MAGA coalition: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who on Friday announced her resignation<\/a>, is spurned by its leader. And incoming New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, held up as a midterm Republican bogeyman, is now welcomed by him.<\/p>\n

In the space of a whipsaw few hours from Friday and into Saturday morning, Trump \u2014 who has said he knows what \u201cMAGA wants better than anybody else<\/a>,\u201d \u2014 celebrated the impending departure<\/a> of \u201cMarjorie \u2018Traitor\u2019 Brown\u201d on Truth Social (\u201cMarjorie went BAD,\u201d he said) and fangirled over Mamdani (\u201ca Great Honor meeting Zohran Mamdani\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u201cA world turned upside down,\u201d Steve Bannon, the onetime White House aide and MAGA media booster, said in a text.<\/p>\n

MAGA\u2019s Friday trip to The Upside Down all unfolded in a week during which Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), another frequent intraparty Trump target<\/a>, effectively cracked Trump\u2019s hold on his congressional coalition with their Epstein Files Transparency Act.<\/p>\n

Taken together, this week is the freshest reminder that the MAGA movement has always been defined more by id than ideology, the political shaped by the personal \u2014 presenting quite the challenge for whomever must hold the coalition together after Trump.<\/p>\n

Trump and Mamdani\u2019s Friday meeting ended worlds away from where most expected it to go. The get-together, which Fox News previewed as a \u201cshowdown with socialism,\u201d ended as a friendly back-and-forth<\/a> between the democratic socialist and president.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a meeting today that actually surprised me,\u201d Trump told reporters during the public portion of the get together.<\/p>\n

For some of the president\u2019s most ardent supporters, Trump\u2019s praise of Mamdani \u2014 a man he previously warned would lead to ruin in New York City, and who some of Trump\u2019s closest allies (like Elise Stefanik<\/a>) spent months setting up as their personal campaign trail foil \u2014 was agonizing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the purpose of people voting in 2026 if the Democrat policies are \u2018rational?’\u201d Trump whisperer Laura Loomer said in a interview, referencing Trump\u2019s answer to an Oval question in which he said of Mamdani, \u201cI met with a man who\u2019s a very rational person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a little confused,\u201d she continued, \u201cbecause, like, I need to know for the sake of my own edification what the administration\u2019s stance is on Mamdani.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House dismissed any handwringing about the direction of the president’s movement.<\/p>\n

“As the architect of the MAGA movement, President Trump will always put America First. He\u2019s secured the border; tackled Biden\u2019s inflation crisis; lowered drug prices; ended taxes on tips, overtime, and social security; deported criminal illegal aliens; implemented important reforms to put American workers first; and more,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that President Trump met with the newly elected mayor of New York City shows he is willing to talk to anyone to Make America Great Again,” she continued. “Only Blue Light News would try to spin bipartisanship as a bad thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Political horseshoe moments in Trump\u2019s Washington rarely last. But even some of Trump\u2019s closest allies tried to separate themselves from Friday\u2019s meeting. Stefanik \u2014 his onetime pick for United Nations ambassador who is now running for New York governor \u2014 has repeatedly called Mamdani a \u201cjihadist,\u201d a label Trump explicitly rejected on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all want NYC to succeed. But we\u2019ll have to agree to disagree on this one,\u201d Stefanik posted on social media on Friday, repeatedly invoking the pejorative despite Trump\u2019s about-face.<\/p>\n

Still, Democrats \u2014 particularly those close to the incoming mayor \u2014 were thrilled with how Friday went down. \u201cTrump respects strength and winners,\u201d said Rebecca Katz, founding partner at Fight Agency, whose firm made ads for Mamdani.<\/p>\n

And some Democratic strategists focused on 2026 celebrated Trump undermining Republicans\u2019 attempts to paint Mamdani as the midterm bogeyman<\/a> he entered the day as. Did Speaker Mike Johnson\u2019s entire 2026 strategy just crumble?<\/p>\n

\u201cPour one out for the NRCC\/NRSC staffers who saw their 2026 ads go up in smoke. Sad!\u201d said the veteran Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson.<\/p>\n

Still, many are convinced that it is only a matter of when \u2014 not if \u2014 Trump\u2019s embrace of the New Yorker will evaporate.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlenty of time for that to come if it does,\u201d said GOP strategist Doug Heye. \u201cEither of them coming out of that meeting on the attack would have been a mistake, especially given they\u2019ve both tapped into voters who feel systems are broken and things cost too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

And some Democrats \u2014 particularly Mamdani\u2019s intraparty critics \u2014 are convinced it all fades, and GOP messaging continues apace. Alex Hoffman, the Democratic strategist and donor adviser, said: \u201cHe will become the bogeyman as soon as he starts implementing policy and saying \u2018socialist\u2019 as the sitting mayor.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for Democrats, Friday\u2019s friendly confab presented a possible path forward for handling the president.<\/p>\n

In a year when Democrats have struggled with how to engage Trump, in which at least one of them hid behind a folder<\/a> in a White House meeting and left the base wondering about her 2028 sauce, Mamdani just put on a masterclass, Katz and other Democratic strategists said.<\/p>\n

Their theory of the case: In his meeting, he offered a template for handling Trump and Trumpism. Trump thinks Democrats are weak; Mamdani projected strength. His body language was neither embarrassed nor defensive. He did not moderate any of his positions. He didn\u2019t grandstand, nor was he pugilistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome Democrats made the decision that they had to reject Zohran completely if they didn\u2019t agree with all of his policies,\u201d Katz said. \u201cThat was a mistake. Zohran doesn\u2019t have all the answers, but he does have a way at looking at situations that is different from typical Democrats in Washington. We need a lot of wins in 2026. Let\u2019s work together to figure out how to get them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew Howard, Nick Reisman and Joe Anuta contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has long claimed that he \u2014 and he alone \u2014 dictates the future of the MAGA movement. And a topsy-turvey Friday will put that to the test. A weekend wellness check on the MAGA coalition: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who on Friday announced her resignation, is spurned by its leader. And incoming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}