As Washington heaved over the possibility of a partial government shutdown, leading far-right figures gathered with thousands of Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters and, for the most part, gloried in splintering the president-elect’s party.
Speakers and attendees at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest 2024 hailed Trump and billionaire Elon Musk for initially scuttling a bipartisan agreement to keep government open. They jeered House Speaker Mike Johnson and his willingness to engage with Democrats, disregarding Johnson’s close alliance with Trump and frequent appearances at his side.
“The political class is infected with a malignant cancer. The cancer is bipartisanship,” boomed Steve Bannon, the Trump adviser who perhaps more than any other reflects and stokes the president-elect’s pugilistic populism.
“We don’t need partisanship,” Bannon continued, as he called for Johnson’s ouster. “We need hyper-partisanship.”
The president-elect has wide latitude with his core supporters and is in turn responsive to their demands. That dynamic fuels the unpredictability put
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