‘They just believe what Trump tells them to believe’: After weeks of trashing Mike Johnson, the MAGA base abruptly flip-flops

With the inauguration looming large towards the end of winter, you could be forgiven for thinking that the MAGA movement would be gearing up to become something approaching functional. After all, it’s time to take the presidency and get to work “making America great again.”

Predictably, the MAGA movement isn’t quite capable of that, so it’s instead falling over itself in a show of chaos that would be funny if it wasn’t so serious. This is a movement characterized by devotion to one man at the top, and that’s never been quite as clear as when the MAGA underlings try to have an independent thought — only to get shot down by their betters and told what to believe instead.

Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the House, has spent weeks being trashed by his fellow Republicans — including Donald Trump and JD Vance — only for there to have been an abrupt turnaround. This change in opinion has little to do with Mike Johnson himself, or anything he’s said and done; Trump said he’s okay, so the MAGAs agreed. While this is par for the course from a MAGA-infested Republican Party with more flip flops than a beach in July, it’s not a good look.

In a complete departure from his previous attitude, Trump posted a statement praising Johnson and in a total reversal of their previously held, completely “independent” feelings, the MAGA foot soldiers fell in line.

The MAGA movement is built on slavish devotion to one man. It’s essentially a cult of personality where strongly held convictions, ideological thinking, or independent thought are cast aside in favor of adherence to the leader’s whims. Nowhere is this clearer than in how elected Republicans stumble and trip over themselves as they rush to fall in line.

New Jersey Congressman and Republican Jeff Van Drew claims to support Mike Johnson in a Fox News interview, and then with his next statement makes it clear that he would change his mind if Trump told him otherwise! Claiming to be an “independent” person, Van Drew seems completely unaware that both his actions and his words support a different view. X users were quick to point out the disparity, calling Van Drew a “clown” or a “joke” among other things.

As amusing as isolated incidents such as this can be, the sad and dangerous fact is that these are not isolated incidents. Nor are they confined to a small subset of elected representatives — this behavior is rife throughout the entire MAGA movement. When Trump says jump, they ask how high. When Trump says up is down and grass is blue, they agree.

When the movement spent days arguing against oligarchs-in-training Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s desire for more skilled immigration according to its “deeply held” ideological convictions, all it took was a statement from Trump for the matter to be dropped. As journalist Ronald Filipkowksi put it on X, “they just believe what Trump tells them to believe.”

In recent weeks many have joked about “President Musk” being the real power behind Trump, but more and more it looks less like a joke and more like a worrying statement of fact. Trump may be the movement’s popular figurehead, the leader whose words change minds, but it feels pretty clear that he’s far from the driving force behind its policies and beliefs — whatever those actually are this week.