What Are Trump Toadies to Do Now? Pivot Hard, Obviously.

Two days after Election Day, Laura Loomer, a conspiracy theorist and proud Islamophobe who has served as one of President Donald Trump’s most fervent and influential backers, was in a reflective mood. “I just need to step back, recharge, refocus, and be present in my own life and my own mind with peace and clarity for a little while,” she announced on X, saying she’d decided to suspend her twice-weekly livestream, “Loomer Unleashed,” to focus on her upcoming wedding and what she called “a healthy work life balance.” 

“I push things off that matter to me and my happiness to do for others 24/7, and I think I need to change that for a brief moment,” Loomer added. 

The massive blue wave of the midterms was a historic rebuke to so much of the extremism that Loomer and others support. Loomer’s latest move may have been inspired by additional factors: Her tweets came shortly after the Washington Post reported allegations that she is paid by clients to post political tweets on X without disclosing that arrangement to her audience. (Loomer denied the allegations, telling the Post that she is a journalist and activist who is sometimes paid to produce research material, but is not an “influencer” who is paid to tweet.)

Loomer is hardly alone among Trump toadies suddenly experiencing a shift in outlook.

Benny Johnson, for instance, an influencer and propagandist who has served as an enthusiastic MAGA content creator, offered a rare critique the day after the election about Trump policy. In a video posted to X and Instagram, Johnson admitted that the war in Iran had been, as he put it, “not worth it.” 

“There’s absolutely no foreign war or any military objective or any foreign nation that is worth sacrificing my nation for, and my children’s future here to, Communists and jihadists here in this country,” he declared. He also said that Washington D.C. serves as a “reality distortion matrix” for even “the best red-blooded Americans” who enter office, and who forget the people they were sent there to represent. 

Other MAGA stalwarts suddenly appeared willing to confront inflation and the cost-of-living crisis. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, for instance, admitted on a podcast that for many voters, “their lives had been harder the past couple of years,” after previously seeming to blame the current inflation on Joe Biden. On X, Cruz also promised, no doubt with a 2028 calendar in mind, that the GOP would “rebuild as a true blue-collar party, not by embracing socialism but by being real free-market conservatives.”  

Within Trump’s cabinet, only Vice President JD Vance seemed to be openly attempting a pivot, acknowledging that Tuesday’s massive losses were about the unpopularity of the war in Iran. “The reason we lost is the war,” he wrote, while also acknowledging other key issues for voters, including inflation, the cost of living, and what he delicately termed “our relationship to Israel.”  Tech investor David Sacks, who served as Trump’s AI and crypto “czar,” and who now serves on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, agreed, tweeting, “Republicans lost the midterms because of the war and its economic consequences.”

In the MAHA world, there was also a noticeable shift in tone. MAHA PAC co-president Tony Lyons, a longtime RFK Jr. ally and founder of the company who publishes the HHS secretary’s books, said that he’d be willing to work with Democrats and anyone else willing to advance the MAHA agenda. “There are good people across the political spectrum who want to be part of this,” he said on MAHA Action’s podcast. “And we’re going to find every one of them.” Speaking to Lyons, Mary Holland, the president of anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense, added, “We’ve been associated with MAGA. But MAHA is not a political party per se. It’s about principles.” 

While some on the now anti-Trump far right are openly denouncing the president, figures like Loomer, Vance, and even Lyons have to find a more difficult balance: maintaining a good relationship with the president and the administration while not owning the Trump-driven mistakes that led to electoral wipeout.

Trump said this fall that he wanted to make sure voters saw the midterms as a referendum on him, and they obliged. Now, his most diehard allies and backers have to figure out what that means for them and their political futures.