What was billed as a show of conservative solidarity instead became a manic weekend of mutual MAGA bloodletting, with activists and influencers tearing into one another in full view of the faithful. At the center of the chaos was Vivek Ramaswamy, who learned the hard way that appealing to reason can be a risky move inside a movement powered by grievance.
Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur turned GOP gadfly and current Ohio gubernatorial hopeful, tried to confront a surge of anti-Indian sentiment bubbling up on the right. Addressing attacks on Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President JD Vance, he condemned slurs and mocked the fixation on so-called “heritage Americans,” calling it as unhinged as anything produced by the far left. American identity, he argued, is rooted in ideals like merit, free speech, and citizenship—not ancestry. “There is no American who is more American than somebody else,” he said. “Either you’re an American, or you’re not.”
The response was brutal. Online MAGA diehards quickly branded him an outsider, telling him to “go home” and accusing him of knowing nothing about the country he was born in. For a politician who has spent years courting Trump’s base, the backlash was a reminder of how conditional acceptance can be in a movement steeped in nativist rhetoric.
But Ramaswamy’s bruising was only the opening act. The Turning Point conference—marketed as a solemn tribute following the reported assassination of founder Charlie Kirk, devolved into a reality-TV style implosion. Influencers turned the memorial atmosphere into a free-for-all of accusations and conspiracy theories.
Ben Shapiro went after Tucker Carlson for platforming white nationalist Nick Fuentes, then pivoted to Candace Owens, accusing her of spreading reckless theories about Kirk’s death and flirting with antisemitic tropes. Megyn Kelly jumped in, accusing Shapiro and his allies of ideological policing and declaring, with thinly veiled resentment, that she was done being his friend. Steve Bannon followed, dismissing Shapiro as a “cancer” on the movement and accusing him of putting foreign interests ahead of America.
By the end, even loyal attendees sounded drained. Words once reserved for Democrats—parasite, coward, antisemite—were now being hurled across the MAGA tent. A movement long sustained by outrage and external enemies appeared to have exhausted both, turning inward in what felt less like debate than an autoimmune collapse.
