Just when it appeared that President Trump’s hold over his party might be slipping, his most vocal Republican antagonist seemed to back away from the fight.
The shock resignation of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who transformed from the ultimate MAGA loyalist to a confounding critic of the president, showed that Mr. Trump remains both formidable and feared in Republican politics. Even as a lame-duck president, he is still able to exact retribution against conservative apostates and bring down onetime followers who dare to cross him.
At the same time, her departure represents far more than just another political notch in Mr. Trump’s belt: The defiant nature of her nearly 11-minute video announcement on Friday evening, which quickly went viral, hinted at the fissures now dividing the president’s movement.
Laying out a laundry list of policy and political disagreements with Mr. Trump and the party establishment under him, she positioned herself as the true MAGA champion and declared that if she had been “cast aside,” then “many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well.”
Ms. Greene has always been a singular and idiosyncratic performer in Republican politics, but her discontent — and her desire to talk openly about what Mr. Trump’s party should stand for beyond unyielding allegiance to him — increasingly appears to be shared by some conservative officials and aspiring leaders.
From the halls of Congress to the microphones of the manosphere, Republicans have been engaging in battles over policy, ideology and identity that could define the future of a movement shaped for a decade by Mr. Trump’s personality-driven politics.
In recent weeks, disagreements have surfaced across a wide array of urgent issues: possible military action in Venezuela and other foreign policy entanglements; the impact of tariffs and health care costs on the pocketbooks of voters; the release of the Epstein files; allowing legal immigration for highly skilled workers; continued miliary support for Israel; and whether to tolerate racial slurs and antisemitic language in their politics. Collectively, the conflicts represent the party’s biggest rift since Mr. Trump won the White House in 2016.
Some of the disputes, like Ms. Greene’s, are rooted in frustration with Mr. Trump. Other clashes are efforts at political self-preservation as fears grow among congressional Republicans that the president’s unpopularity could hurt them in 2026 midterm contests.
The arguments amount to the first whispers of a far more complicated conversation: What will being Republican mean in an era no longer dominated by Mr. Trump?
Beginning in Mr. Trump’s first term, a parade of traditional Republican lawmakers have been cast into exile for refusing to accept Mr. Trump’s conquest of their party. Ms. Greene is the first true believer to leave while arguing that the president has betrayed the founding principles of his supporters.
Her departure may chiefly be aimed at avoiding an embarrassing political defeat. Ms Greene said she did not wish to endure a Trump-backed primary challenge in her deep-red district.
But the battle cry in her announcement, arguing that the Republican Party under Mr. Trump has lost its way, is a signal of how some conservatives are slowly imagining a future where his priorities, whims and vendettas no longer steer their movement.
Partywide Flare-Ups
Other younger conservatives have also started flicking at that future.
Vivek Ramaswamy, who ran for president in 2024 and is now the leading Republican candidate for Ohio governor, declared in a speech last month that his party was at “a fork in the road.” Republicans would have to choose, he said, whether they stand for longstanding conservative ideals or right-wing identity politics focused on race, gender and national origin.
“President Trump has done an incredible job of securing the border and delivering peace to the Middle East, and the question will soon turn to what comes next,” Mr. Ramaswamy said in an interview on Friday. “The future isn’t about what we’re against, it’s about what we stand for: colorblind meritocracy, the rule of law, capitalism and the American dream.”
Not all pro-Trump Republicans agree with those principles.
Influential conservatives — including Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro and Steve Bannon — are feuding over support for Israel and the role in the party of the white nationalist Nick Fuentes. The drama has ensnared the Heritage Foundation, the party’s biggest think tank, which has faced infighting and resignations over a decision by its president to defend Mr. Carlson for a friendly interview with Mr. Fuentes.
In Congress, Republicans overcame Mr. Trump’s initial refusal to release the Epstein files and rejected his demand to gut the filibuster. In statehouses, Republicans in Indiana and Kansas have resisted White House pressure to redraw congressional lines.
Mr. Trump’s surprisingly cordial meeting on Friday with Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani of New York City prompted howls of protest from some of the president’s loyalists, like Representative Elise Stefanik of New York and the right-wing influencer Laura Loomer.
And on podcasts and conservative cable news, factions are pushing back against various Trump policies. Conservatives oppose providing H-1B visas for highly skilled immigrant workers, moderates in battleground districts are arguing against ending health insurance subsidies, and Republicans from farming states protested a plan to expand beef imports from Argentina.
“As the architect of the MAGA movement, President Trump will always put America First,” said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman.
Vance, Cruz and 2028
Other than Ms. Greene, almost no Republicans are offering an overt challenge to Mr. Trump, who still drives the agenda of not only their party but the entire political world. But the fractures are kick-starting the earliest discussion of a 2028 presidential race that is expected to be the first in 16 years not to include Mr. Trump. (The president is constitutionally limited from seeking a third term; he and some of his allies have floated that he could try to run again, though he has seemed to concede he cannot.)
Christopher Rufo, a prominent conservative activist, said the party had moved into a period of “post-Trump politics,” with leading figures maneuvering for market share and ideological control.
Much of the jockeying, he said, is focused on Vice President JD Vance, who is widely considered a potential Trump heir.
“This is a debate for the future of the Republican Party writ large, and it’s an influence campaign to try to recruit JD Vance toward one side or the other,” Mr. Rufo said. “People want to influence the vice president because they believe that they would be therefore influencing the next president.”
Mr. Vance has said he welcomes the discussion, though he has warned that intramural conflict could distract from attacking Democrats.
“These debates should happen, they should happen in podcasts and they should happen in the media,” Mr. Vance told Breitbart News on Thursday. He added that Republicans must “have our debates, but focus on the enemy so that we can win victories that matter for the American people.”
Other ambitious Republicans, cognizant of Mr. Trump’s passionate support among the conservative base, are wading into the discussion far more cautiously than Ms. Greene.
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has positioned himself as one of the party’s loudest voices denouncing antisemitism, pointedly criticizing Mr. Carlson and Mr. Fuentes. Mr. Cruz, who ran for president in 2016, says he is focused on maintaining the party’s traditional support for Israel — not on a 2028 run. But he has also made it clear that he is leaving his options open.
“When Trump is not in the White House, what then?” Mr. Cruz asked this month at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual conference.
He chuckled and shrugged after a man in the audience shouted his name in response.
A ‘Tug of War’
Even some Democrats sense the shift.
Representative Ro Khanna of California spent much of the spring focused on attacking Mr. Vance, whom he saw as the most likely heir to the Trump movement. Now, he said, the potential 2028 field seems far more fluid.
“If you’d asked me three months ago, I would have said JD Vance is going to be the nominee of the Republican Party, and now, I think, it could be Marjorie Taylor Greene and it could be Marco Rubio and it could be someone we aren’t even talking about,” said Mr. Khanna, who is eyeing his own bid for the Democratic nomination. “They have gone from a consolidation around Trump to a serious consideration of a post-Trump future.”
Mr. Trump has largely rejected any idea that his party is moving on, arguing that his positions define what his movement supports.
“I love my conservative friends, I love MAGA, but this is MAGA,” Trump insisted on Wednesday, as he defended H-1B visas before business executives.
Charlie Gerow, a former vice chairman of the American Conservative Union, said Mr. Trump was experiencing a “slow devolving” of his power, opening the door to new figures who want to shape the future ideology of the party.
“There’s a tug of war within the Republican Party, but the Trump team is a lot stronger within the party than any other faction,” Mr. Gerow said.
Still despite Ms. Greene’s attempts to define the MAGA movement, it’s unclear what being a Republican will mean without Mr. Trump, said Mike Madrid, a Republican political consultant and critic of the president.
After Mr. Trump is gone, Mr. Madrid said, the coalition built by the president will not revert to the principles of fiscal conservatism, traditional social policy and a hawkish foreign policy that were the backbone of Republican ideology for generations.
“We’re not going to wake up and there’s a hangover like we were on some eight-year bender and we’re all going to vote for George W. Bush again,” he said. “There’s no longer any policy, any philosophy that holds this all together.”
Lisa Lerer is a national political reporter for The Times, based in New York. She has covered American politics for nearly two decades.
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