Taken from a Perplexity answer to the question: “What are the current major conflicts within the conservative movement?” This is getting nasty!
Among conservatives broadly, the biggest fights right now are over populism vs. traditional conservatism, how far to go on culture‑war issues, and the influence of far‑right/antisemitic voices inside the MAGA world.
Main fault lines on the right
- Populist‑MAGA vs. traditional/right‑libertarian conservatives: There is a growing split between Trump‑style, government‑willing‑to-act populists (often aligned with things like Heritage’s Project 2025) and older “small‑government, business‑friendly” conservatives who are uneasy with using the state to punish enemies or purge the civil service.
- Foreign policy and Israel: Conferences like Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest have exposed deep arguments over support for Israel, Ukraine, and non‑interventionism, with figures like Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson publicly clashing over what the right’s stance should be.
- Extremism and antisemitism inside MAGA: Recent reporting describes MAGA‑aligned influencers accused of antisemitic and extremist rhetoric, leading to resignations and a breakaway Pence‑aligned project from inside the Heritage orbit, framed explicitly as a fight over the movement’s moral and strategic direction.
On the positive:
This internecine fighting shows the Right is not uni-dimensional but comprised of individual passionate thinkers, unlike the Left who parrot the ideology, words and actions of their demagogue, megalomaniacal, cult-leaders.
These divisions have always existed. Time to get them out in the open and resolve them. All of the debaters have more in common than not.
On the negative:
This is airing dirty laundry. Would be so much better if the eyeball and click-seekers among us would just keep their mouths shut and have private sidebars rather than public spats.
The timing sucks. The mid-terms are approaching and the cards are stacked against us as it is.
We need to rally behind the GOOD and what we have IN COMMON, not amplify the arguments that are secondary to the POSITIVE.
Sigh…the problem with being a traditionalist/conservative is we have brains we use, we have rational arguments that we stand up and argue or fight for, and we are individuals, not Leftist Lemmings.