Source: Politics<\/p>\n
A coalition of MAGA die-hards, tech bros and blue-collar workers were key to Donald Trump\u2019s November victory.<\/p>\n
Now, some of them are already at each other\u2019s throats.<\/p>\n
Free traders and protectionists are at odds over Trump\u2019s promise<\/a> to enact \u201cuniversal\u201d tariffs. Immigration hard-liners are butting heads with<\/a> tech companies that support legal immigration. And isolationists are grappling with<\/a> the president-elect\u2019s apparently increasingly expansionist global agenda.<\/p>\n And days before he takes office some of Trump\u2019s most ardent original supporters have been the most resistant to the bigger tent.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s going to be a fundamental ideological clash between the original MAGA base that supported President Trump from the beginning and the tech overlords who are literally buying influence so that they can try to manipulate and change our foreign policy and our tech policy and our immigration policy,\u201d said Laura Loomer, the controversial conservative activist who said she lost premium features<\/a> on X due to disagreeing with Elon Musk on immigration policy.<\/p>\n These clashes, including opening shots in recent days from longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon at the president-elect\u2019s new companion Musk, presage the challenges Trump faces in governing his newly big-tent Republican Party.<\/p>\n But some Trump allies argue these divides are a feature \u2014 not a bug \u2014 of Trump\u2019s governing style. During his first administration, the president-elect was known for running his Cabinet like an executive boardroom: He brought together a cadre of diverse interests, let them duke it out and then, on his own, decided the path forward. That strategy, of encouraging competition among his advisers, allowed Trump to retain the ultimate decision-making authority and prevented any one group from gaining too much power.<\/p>\n \u201cWhenever one of these issues comes up and there\u2019s a fight, like between Steve Bannon and Elon Musk, and I\u2019m like, well, whose name is on the ballot? Trump\u2019s,\u201d said Scott Jennings, a GOP strategist who was at one point considered for the president-elect\u2019s press secretary post. \u201cHis personal and his political influence is at its apex. And so if there\u2019s a fight or a division going on, and he\u2019s got two people who are legitimately allies of Trump and want to see him do well but they\u2019re fighting or competing for his ear on something, ultimately, his power and influence here is going to settle it, I would imagine, rather quickly. There\u2019s no more powerful person in Washington right now.\u201d<\/p>\n The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Beyond the schism between hardcore MAGA loyalists and Musk over H-1B visas \u2014 which are designed to allow companies to bring skilled foreign workers to the U.S. but have drawn the ire of some Democrats and Republicans \u2014 some Trump loyalists like Loomer and Bannon have also attacked noted venture capitalists and players in the tech world.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is only the first of many eruptions and fractures between the MAGA base and the so-called Tech Right as they call themselves \u2014 and I say \u2018as they call themselves\u2019 because these guys are not right wing \u2014 they decided to support Trump after he was almost assassinated, but their voting record and their political giving history shows [otherwise],\u201d Loomer said.<\/p>\n In an interview with POLITICO, Bannon also took aim at tech funders Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, who are said to have Trump\u2019s ear \u2014 and even questioned his pick of Ken Howery to be ambassador to Greenland due to his ties to Thiel.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope our efforts in Greenland are not associated with that,\u201d Bannon said.<\/p>\n