MAGA vs. the Machine

MAGA adherents aren’t a monolith, and their political commitments vary. But the movement, at a minimum, includes a rhetorical commitment to defending labor and restoring a mythic American past — a return to the Garden of Eden. That’s the promise Donald Trump’s tariffs are ostensibly meant to deliver: by imposing steep duties, corporate planners will be supposedly forced to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Trump himself routinely repeats the message: build in America, or pay the tariffs. In Canada’s case, the ultimatum comes with a flourish — become the “cherished” 51st state.

Across the table from the MAGA populists sit the tech-bro libertarians, who view generative AI as not just the future but destiny incarnate — the inevitable fix for all existing and possible problems. They fancy themselves a benevolent vanguard, capable of delivering a new Eden — if only the world would step aside. It’s this ethos that explains their deep aversion to regulation, restraint, or restriction, including copyright law. The tech elite see creative works not as social goods but as raw material: fodder to be scraped, processed, and used to train AI systems that enrich owners and shareholders.

As many have pointed out, the copyright-AI battle is not only a central struggle within the Trump administration; it is also a broader conflict over who controls intellectual property and to what end. For decades, corporations have abused copyright to unreasonably extend coverage periods and impoverish the public domain. Their goal: maximizing both control over IP and profits. But AI firms aren’t interested in reforming that system. They’re not looking to open access or enrich the commons — they just want training data. And in fighting for it, they may end up reshaping copyright law in ways that outlast this administration.

As Nguyen notes, after the Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, was turfed by DOGE-aligned officials, Trump antitrust adviser Mike Davis posted to Truth Social: “Now tech bros are going to steal creators’ copyrights for AI profits. . . . This is 100 percent unacceptable.” Trump reposted it. That’s the shape of the struggle: MAGA populists, who see their own content as sacred property, are up against a tech elite that views all content as extractable fuel.

Which Way, MAGA-man?

This tension within the Trump administration, and within America’s right-wing firmament as it stands, is also a contradiction that cannot hold. On one side are the copyright maximalists and their adjacent MAGA populists, who claim to defend workers and creators. On the other are the tech-bro libertarians, whose vision of the future depends on unfettered access to data and minimal regulation.

At the center of this web is Trump: not just the leader of the party or the country but the figurehead of a movement. Yet his loyalties tend to follow flattery. His position often reflects not strategy but ego, making the whole arrangement feel less like a modern political coalition and more like a medieval court. The setup is markedly absurd — more Versailles than White House — and seems engineered for rupture. Louis XIV would understand: all power flows from the ego at the center.

Whether Trump can maintain even a semblance of unity — emphasis on semblance — is uncertain. He is currently the US right’s only unifying figure, but the stakes between these two factions appear to be zero-sum. Tech companies will either get the content they want to scrape, or they won’t. They’ll either enrich themselves at the cost of the workers MAGA claims to protect, or they won’t. At some point, something has to give. Musk’s recent retreat from his prominent role in government may suggest that someone in Trump’s orbit sees the conflict coming — and suspects the tech libertarians may lose out. But then again, who knows what Trump will think tomorrow, let alone in six months.

As the American economy falters, and as both workers and consumers begin to bear the costs of Trump’s tariffs and the AI-driven restructuring of multiple sectors, the factional cracks may turn into chasms. Trump is already wildly unpopular around the world and at home — his approval rating after one hundred days is among the lowest in modern history. The fissures are widening and, as they do, people are going to start falling through them. The question is: From which camp?

If there is a real fracture, don’t expect the MAGA base to be cast out. Expect instead that it will be the tech barons — those who imagined they could rule as gods over the masses — who find themselves on the outside. Of course, billionaire MAGA operators may loathe Silicon Valley, but they share its god complex — and their vision leaves little room for the people they claim to champion. For opponents of the Trump administration, there is no salvation here; neither camp is hero. In other words, let them fight.