If there was any doubt about which side Vice President J.D. Vance is on in the MAGA influencer war, there is none left after his speech at AmericaFest Sunday. At the annual Turning Point USA conference, Vance began his speech with a thinly veiled reference to Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro, who delivered a stinging jeremiad calling out by name leading Donald Trump supporters who had abandoned truth in the pursuit of clicks.
“I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform,” Vance said. “President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless, self-defeating purity tests,” he added.
Vance has aligned himself with the side that wants to keep the MAGA tent as wide as possible. And that means he is on Team Tucker Carlson. On the other side of the party’s civil war are conservatives like Newsweek senior editor Josh Hammer, Fox News host Mark Levin, and Shapiro. Shapiro’s speech denounced those inside the MAGA coalition who were too afraid to call out conspiracy theory hokum, lest they offend their very-online audiences. In short, Shapiro is asking the MAGA coalition to enforce its own borders and keep out the kooks, conspiracy theorists, and antisemites.
