If you didn’t watch the first season of the reality television show "The Donald Trump Presidency," which aired from 2017 to 2021, then you missed the running gag that asked, “Is this the day he finally became president?” 

The implication was that, at some inflection point, Trump would at last act like a serious, authentic president. Spoiler alert: That day never came.

The big question that now hangs over "The Donald Trump Presidency," which was inexplicably picked up for a second season by American voters, is this: At what point does MAGA turn on him?

Another spoiler alert: The "Make America Great Again" crowd shows no sign of imminent rebellion, even as some of the loudest mouths in the MAGA-verse are excoriating Trump for attacking Iran in an incredibly expensive war of choice that has shaken the American economy.  

Their beef: Trump campaigned in 2024 for a second term on promises of ending foreign wars and improving America’s economy. And now he’s done the complete opposite. In fact, Trump has done exactly what he claimed President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris would do if they held onto the White House. 

Will Trump's poor polling sway MAGA loyalists?

A March 12 CNN summary of recent public opinion polling about the war in Iran shows that a majority of Americans oppose it, though voters are divided along party lines, with Democrats and independents far more likely to not support the war and Republicans more likely to support it.

But MAGA, a populist movement allegedly built on an urge for American isolationism and an aversion to regime change and nation building abroad, has effortlessly dumped those supposed principles and flip-flopped into a rabid band of war-hungry neocons.

It prompts the question: Does MAGA really care about anything at all, except Trump's next impetuous "excursion"? This is not some policy-based worldview. It's just a cult of personality.

A YouGov poll released March 2, two days after Trump started this war with Iran, found that 65% of self-described MAGA Republicans strongly approved of the attack while 20% somewhat approved. Non-MAGA Republicans were also in support but by smaller margins, with 27% strongly approving and 36% somewhat approving.

An NBC News poll released March 4 showed that 54% of American voters disapproved of the war. But 9 of out 10 MAGA Republicans approved, while 54% of non-MAGA Republicans approved.

The Silver Bulletin, in a March 11 article, measured the average of seven polls about the Iranian conflict from the previous two weeks and found that 50% of Americans opposed it while 40% were in support. Republicans in general backed the war by 77%, with MAGA support always higher than the party overall.

Trump's biggest-name supporters are wavering on Iran

With the war in Iran dominating the news cycle and Americans paying attention, some of Trump's most ardent big-name backers in the right-wing attention industry have pleaded with him to return to MAGA principles (which by now are clearly just a political mirage).

Former Fox News host-turned podcaster Tucker Carlson, an occasional guest of Trump's at the White House, called his war with Iran "absolutely disgusting and evil," while predicting that it would have an impact on Trump's political movement.

Podcaster Joe Rogan, who endorsed Trump for president in 2024, said the war in Iran "just doesn't make any sense to me," based on Trump's campaign promises.

"It just seems so insane based on what he ran on," Rogan said on his show on March 10. "I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right?

Megyn Kelly, another former Fox News host-turned podcaster, took aim on March 2 at Trump's alleged motive for attacking Iran – that he thought Iran was going to attack America first.

“Does it make any sense to you that Iran was planning preemptive strikes against us and our civilians, knowing full well of the massive military assets we had moved into the region, the aircraft carriers and so on?" Kelly asked before answering, "Obviously, it doesn’t."

Carlson, Rogan and Kelly have accused Trump of allowing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to drag him into the war.

Trump, after showing us all that MAGA has no definable principles, then demonstrated that any MAGA acolyte is expendable if they say that out loud.

Trump, in a March 2 interview with journalist Rachel Bade, dismissed Carlson and Kelly this way: “MAGA is Trump − MAGA’s not the other two.”

That's the real MAGA manifesto right there. MAGA is whatever Trump wants it to be, whenever he wants it to.

MAGA is not now and never was a defined set of principles. It's just a cover for an impulsive president who surrounds himself with people who will only tell him what he wants to hear because he can't bear anything else.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Translating Politics, here.

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