MAGA supporters are using some of their classic bullying and trolling tactics on Republican senators ahead of the election of the Senate majority leader. But that may backfire in this case.
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Elon Musk and his social media platform X played a huge role in getting Donald Trump elected, including by spreading misinformation and propaganda. However, while the site and its owner undoubtedly helped many Republican candidates, what is going to happen when there are fights within the GOP?
We are about to find out. There is currently a three-man battle for who is going to lead Senate Republicans now that they have won the majority in the upper chamber of Congress.
Sens. John Cornyn (TX), John Thune (SD), and Rick Scott (FL) are all vying to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell (KY), who announced earlier this year that he would step down from his leadership position after the election.
So far, Trump has not endorsed a candidate ahead of Wednesday’s vote (and even if he did, that might not decide the outcome because Senate Republicans will vote by secret ballot).
However, some of his closest allies have thrown their support behind Scott.
First and foremost, that means Musk, who has been hanging out with the president-elect in recent days and joined him for calls with foreign leaders, meetings, and golf.
After Trump called on the eventual senate majority leader to help him confirm his nominees quickly, if necessary with recess appointments that would allow them to bypass a full Senate vote, all three candidates assured him that they would do so.
But it was Scott who garnered some of the most coveted MAGA endorsements when he was first out of the gate to pledge that he would do the president-elect’s bidding:
“Rick Scott for Senate Majority Leader!” tweeted Musk.
The Florida senator also garnered support from other influential Trump allies, such as Tucker Carlson and Vivek Ramaswamy.
However, there also appears to be a drawback to these endorsements.
Throughout the campaign, Musk et al. have trained their Twitter followers to view politics as a bare-knuckle sport, and their “bros” quickly sprang into action to back Scott, the man they were told to support.
But in this case, the opposition wasn’t Democrats but other Republicans… and they did not appreciate these tactics.
After MAGA influencer Benny Johnson tweeted a “leaked” list of how senators were expected to vote (which was likely bogus), Trump supporters targeted wayward lawmakers (i.e., those who purportedly did not support Scott) with phone calls and online messages… some of which called them names or threatened them with primaries.
These tactics will hardly prove effective. First of all, as noted above, the vote will be secret. In addition, the majority of Senate Republicans won’t be up for reelection in 2026.
Therefore, unsurprisingly, the trolling strategy seems to have caused a backlash.
As it turns out, Republicans don’t like to be on the receiving end of the kind of online bullying tactics that helped get them elected.
How much do they resent it? We will find out Wednesday.
