It is hard not to notice the civil war unfolding within MAGA world. Some say it began with the murder of the notorious far-right bigot, Charlie Kirk. Others say it began long before this. But one thing is undeniable. The war is reaching epic proportions now.

On one side are the establishment hacks. The ones who have used their access to power in order to promote an ideology of authoritarianism. On the other are the monsters largely created by the establishment hacks. Those who use their skills with social media manipulation and grift to stoke old stereotypes and social hatreds. Neither are traditionally conservative. But both have captured the conservative mind.

This has reached its most visible example in the battle between social media grifters, Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens. Shapiro, who is Jewish, is known for his vile dehumanization of transgender people, Muslims and immigrants. Owens, who is Black, also participated in these bigotries. But since the murder of Kirk, she has taken it a step further in peddling odious antisemitic conspiracy theories and demonization.

Ben Shapiro has always supported the ethnostate of Israel. He has rationalized its apartheid, championed its most brutal policies and whitewashed its genocide of the Palestinians. Anyone who opposes Israel or Zionism is cast as antisemitic by the far right ideologue. But Owens, who was fired by Shapiro from the far right outlet The Daily Wire, has not only come out against Israel, she has used her platform with millions of followers to attack Jews as a whole, regurgitating ahistorical and debunked myths.

Whether it is the supposed notion that Jews were responsible for the Atlantic Slave Trade or that they believe all non-Jews are inferior to them, the story is an old one which has its roots in the antisemitic Protocols of Zion. This was a collection of fabricated conversations supposedly between Jewish elders in Russia. One which characterizes Jews as the cunning creators of a secret cabal whose aim was global domination.

The Protocols of Zion is not just an innocuous fiction. It was used by the Nazis and contributed to the persecution of Jewish communities in Germany and throughout Europe and to the Holocaust which claimed millions of Jewish lives and millions of other marginalized groups, including Roma, communists and queer people.

It may be mildly entertaining to watch this mostly online war between two grifters on the far right. But there is far more at stake. Both figures have captured a huge following in their own right. Shapiro’s camp is not only okay with US support for Israel as it commits genocide, it is cheering it on. They revel in the demonization of Palestinians and their supporters, including anti-Zionist Jews, tarring all as antisemitic for opposing the political ideology of Zionism and the apartheid and genocide it has fostered.

Owen’s may speak about genocide being wrong in any instance, but she has no real solidarity with the Palestinian people. Her new found hatred of Israel is not rooted in a principled approach to equality or collective liberation either. It comes from a deep hatred of Jews as a people and a pernicious delusion about them being some menacing, all powerful monolith.

Both Shapiro and Owens represent the darkest underbelly of far right politics in the United States. A toxic brew of white grievance and paranoid social hatred. That Owens is Black does not take away from this reality. In fact, she is the perfect token for peddling it to a population that has been conditioned to feel like they are under attack. They easily jettison facts for fantasy. Her irrational and incongruent conspiracy theories, whether it be that the moon landing was fake or that Brigitte Macron is actually a man, play to an audience which has been largely denuded of critical thinking skills.

Shapiro, who now has the devotion of professional widow Erika Kirk, is using his platform to whip Christian Zionists into a frenzy. Their support of Israel and his do not come from the same place. Evangelicals are not so concerned about Jews as they are in the fulfillment of an unhinged, eschatological opera. But both go hand in hand with American Empire and its goals.

And Shapiro helped create the culture of moral decay we see amongst US conservatives. One that easily dehumanizes and scapegoats minorities and champions the most sadistic policies of the Trump regime. They may all have different motivations, but the result is the same fascist dystopia.

Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens are visual aid to where MAGA was always destined. The deceitful and hateful rhetoric routinely employed by Donald Trump has fed into a miasma of confusion and paranoia. His disdain for intellectual discourse, informed dissent and moral curiosity created a cesspit of vicious hatefulness that has fostered racism, misogyny, transphobia, antisemitism and Islamophobia. It is a poisonous brew that led to the rise of some of the most odious figures of this century, which include Shapiro and Owens.

Perhaps this civil war signals the end of MAGA as a movement. But it is best understood as a death cult. And cults rarely, if ever, dissipate peacefully. It remains to be seen whether this one will fade quickly, or cast a long, dark shadow on the American psyche for generations to come.

Kenn Orfanos, December 2025