At the close of 2025, just a few months after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, thousands of his followers came together in Phoenix for AmericaFest, the annual convention of Turning Point USA. A casual observer might have expected this gathering to serve as an opportunity for conservatives to regroup, celebrate Kirk's legacy, and recommit to his fight against the left. Instead, one by one, MAGA's leading lights took the stage and began shivving one another in public. 'Today, the conservative movement is in serious danger,' warned Ben Shapiro, a co-founder of The Daily Wire. He lambasted right-wing 'charlatans' who 'traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty.' And he named names. Shapiro slammed Tucker Carlson, perhaps the most popular conservative commentator in America, for mainstreaming pro-Nazi sentiment, and dubbed the former Trump strategist Steve Bannon 'a PR flack for Jeffrey Epstein,' the convicted sex criminal (fact-check: mostly true). 'These people are frauds, and they are...
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