Why Laura Loomer’s Relationship with MAGA Demands Our Attention
“I don’t really have much of a life, you know? So, I’m happy to dedicate all my time to helping Trump, because if Trump doesn’t get back in, I don’t have anything.”
That’s Laura Loomer, one of the most controversial far-right figures in America today. She is quite unique, not only because she espouses some of the most bizarre and politically incorrect views about immigrants, Muslims, liberals, and basically every single person, community, and entity deemed as an ‘enemy’ to the far-right community in America, but also because she is among a handful of small but significant female MAGA personalities who have managed to attract the attention of the millions with their ‘acts’ for a few years now.
Unlike major MAGA icons, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who made it into the U.S. Congress a few years ago, Loomer ran for Congress in 2020 and 2022 but did not win. Although she came close to capturing the 21st Congressional District in Florida in 2020 by beating her GOP rivals in the primaries, she eventually lost to Lois Frankel (D-FL) in the general election.
Today it seems that the MAGA momentum that had motivated her congressional campaigns has come to a halt for Loomer. However, apparently, she is not giving up and is keen on finding a way into Trump’s inner circle by dedicating her entire life to the former president’s political cause.
MAGA vs MAGA, Bizarre but True!
Nearly every known figure in the MAGA world hates Loomer and cannot stand her. I know this is quite strange, but the MAGA world, as I wrote a few weeks ago, is a very fragile and competitive realm to exist in. To make it into the dystopian ‘MAGApolis’, you need to be not only mean and nasty to the enemies of the ‘Don’ on the other side of the political aisle, but you must also be willing to agitate, ambush, attack your supposed MAGA ‘teammates’ when (not if!) the push comes to shove.
Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Marjorie Taylor Greene (whom Loomer blasted as Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Greene over her support for former House Majority Leader, Kevin McCarthy), Lauren Boebert, Steve Bannon, Kevin McCarthy, and many people working in the Trump reelection campaign despise her passionately and have even prevented Trump from hiring her as a staff.
“I get call all the time- from our allies in the House, for example- ‘how can you have that sewer rat on? said Steven Bannon, the host of the far-right podcast “War Room”, who himself is one of the most powerful MAGA figures.
Bannon also noted why many people, even from the MAGA world, don’t want to be around Loomer: “She scares people in Trumpworld, they would refer to her as a grenade with a pin in it.”
According to Peter Schorsch, a Florida Republican journalist, “Laura Loomer is a political science experiment gone wrong. She’s what happens when you take a gadfly and inject it with that radioactive waste from Godzilla”.
Today, Loomer is trying to get back into the big leagues again by working for Trump without being paid a dime, or even without having anything to do with his reelection campaign as hired staff.
What she wants is a communication role in the 2nd Trump administration; that’s all she wants, according to her recent Washington Post interview. She is done with running for Congress, and there are already people like MTG and Boebert who are ‘representing’ the interests of MAGApolis in Congress. So, there’s no more room left for additional MAGA female figures there. She now prefers a second life as a future aide in a potential second Trump administration.
She is trying hard to convince Donald Trump to give her a second shot at life in MAGApolis by ‘loomering’ the former president’s rivals on the right, which is an unorthodox tactic and certainly doesn’t win her much love on the right in case Trump ended up convicted and in jail.
Although Trump treats her amicably and occasionally mentions her name in his Truth Social posts, invites her to his Golf Club, and praises her as ‘terrific’ just to motivate her enough to carry on, in reality, he is not really keen on having her near his political campaign.
Nonetheless, those who work at Trump’s reelection campaign are dead set on never allowing Loomer to land a job in a hypothetical resurrection of a Trump White House: “That will never happen in any way, shape, or form”, as one unnamed member of the Trump campaign put it.
The Pursuit of Redemption in the MAGApolis
I purposefully inserted the quote from Loomer from the recent Washington Post piece in the opening section of this article in order to highlight the underlying motive behind Loomer and any other aspiring future MAGA person who wants to get into MAGApolis. What I can tell you is this: support for Trump as a means for self-enrichment, financially and otherwise, is all there is to it.
I have to admit that this recent story by Washington Post’s Kara Voght on Laura Loomer made me look at MAGA from a different perspective than I usually do. Previously, my view was essentially like this: these people are batshit crazy, inherently stupid without redemption, and are attracted to Donald Trump because they see ‘something’ in him that we “civilians” can’t and won’t. Why? Because, at the end of the day, we suffer from the ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’, apparently an incurable mental illness endemic on the political left and center.
But now I get it. It all makes sense to me now. I mean, how could I have missed this?
Allow me to explain:
To Laura Loomer and aspiring MAGA hopefuls, the world of Donald Trump is basically a big, giant, shiny casino. All you have to do is get in, insert a coin, pull the lever, play the game, and if it is your lucky day… and you get all three matching bars, then you’re all set. JACKPOT! As simple as that. But there’s more to it…
To really make it in the cutthroat world of MAGApolis, you have to be willing to jeopardize your sanity and act bizarrely day in and day out. You must always be willing to put your livelihood, future career, good standing with the law enforcement and even freedom on the line and follow the Don’s orders into the abyss. Chances are you will never have a normal life after your shelf-life is over, and you will most likely even end up in jail for allowing yourself to be a pawn of a populist leader who, unlike 99% of his subordinates, has access to good lawyers, fat-pocketed donors, and a media complex whose need for ratings ensures that he will remain a ‘relevant’ figure in the political landscape.
Set all your decency, integrity, learned skills, and basically anything that makes you a normal human being aside. Put them aside. You don’t need them; they will drag you down. Plus, if you bring them with you, the ‘Don’ won’t like you because they will make you look ‘weak’. He [the Don] doesn’t like weak people who have decency and strong character. Instead, he wants pawns and martyrs willing to die for his populist causes.
You have to play hard — I mean really, really hard — to win something… anything. Luck also plays a big role here. Sometimes, being in the right place at the right time pays off handsomely. Most of the time, like 99 percent of the time, it doesn’t. So 99% of the time, you’re on your own
A friendly reminder: success and fame in the MAGA world don’t last long. It is a very short thing. It’s fragile, like a snowflake. If you touch it, it immidiately melts.
It doesn’t matter if you’re the billionaire MyPillow guy, who is now flat broke and can’t even pay his legal fees for his ‘stop-the-steal’ stunts; Sidney Powell, who wouldn’t stop repeating election denialism and now is facing multiple years in the can; or Rudy Giuliani, who was once thought of as a future president and “America’s Mayor” at the height of the 9/11 tragedy but today is referred to as the disgraced former Trump attorney with a tarnished image. The other side will have six ways from Sunday to get back at you.
As Steven Bannon, former Trump administration’s presidential aid described it, “She’s like a monk in medieval France, I don’t know anybody who has dedicated their body and soul to not only Trump, but MAGA, the way she has.”
For Laura Loomer, “selling your soul to Trump”, to quote Steve Bannon, is the only way one could have redemption.
It is a dangerous, nihilistic and lonely path. But some, are willing to take it and even give everything they have to achieve it.
I don’t think of Laura Loomer as a dim-witted person who couldn’t see beyond Trump’s absolute lack of compassion, civility, and humanity. In fact, she’s far from being a moron. In my humble opinion, she understands the political mechanics of the Trump world and wants to compete in it, beat her MAGA rivals and replace them.
However, since she made a terrible choice in 2015/16 to ride the national wave of pro-Trumpism and pro-MAGA sentiments, she can’t roll back the clock and undo her decisions. I want to believe that had she known supporting Trump would lead to being banned from every major platform and many potential sources of revenue, she would not have submitted herself to MAGA politics
So, whether she likes it or not, she (along with others such as Kari Lake) is stuck with Trump and the MAGA community. It is definitely a tragedy for anyone to be stuck with Trump and MAGA.
In her view, the only way out of this mess is for Trump to win, which she believes will equally mean a win for her too. I’m not too sure about that, as many of Trump’s aides are absolutely against letting Loomer have a job at the White House and a future career in D.C.
Nonetheless, this is what she believes in and motivates her every day, round the clock.
“Donald Trump is, like, hope for me. I don’t really feel like I have anything in my life. I got canceled everywhere for what, speaking the truth? and they treat me like a criminal. half the world thinks I’m a Nazi. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
