lllustration By Neil Jamieson The vile videos pile up like coconuts in an island grove. Each conspiracist offers a more outlandish and hateful theory than the next, jostling to outdo a rival before a rival can outdo them. Theories about how Jews killed Charlie Kirk, how Jews ran the slave business, how Jews had prior knowledge of 9/11 - you're better off not knowing the rest. All patently bunk, disproved over and over. Of course, the very act of disproving a claim legitimizes it in the first place. The MAGA movement is, in a word, cracking up - both splitting in two and sending some of its most prominent voices to Crazytown. On podcasts and YouTube shows every day, right-wing personalities - often the country's most popular infotainers, the stars of the doomscroll era - break away from even mainstream MAGA-ism and widen the gap with those they've left behind. Related Stories Lifestyle Matt Damon Says Some Actors Would Prefer "to Go to Jail" Than Be Canceled TV Megyn Kelly Slams Amy Poehler After Golden Globes Best Podcast Win: "Embarrassing and Disrespectful" They are forming sides - Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly and Candace Owens and Steve Bannon and Nick Fuentes on one end; Laura Loomer and Ben Shapiro and Alex Jones and Joe Rogan on the other. Keeping track of the beefs and alliances can dizzy up even the most alert student. This is the inevitable endpoint of information overload: With so many hours to fill and so little attention economy real estate to grab, political shock-jockery becomes the only trick to reach for. This is also, one perhaps must add, the inevitable endgame of a party that has allowed in provocateur bigots. White nationalism and other forms of hatred move like a stain: Once spilled, they spread across the carpet. The rift went on full display after the assassination of Kirk. In life, he sought to invite debate between dissenting viewpoints. In death, he has become a vehicle for yelled derangement. Donald Trump refuses to step in; this fight concerns the future of the party, and he remains a man of the immediate present. And so the beefs wage on, the hosts unleashing theories and insults, aligning and then realigning until they all blur. But don't let the chaos lull you into dismissing this as just another pundit food fight. Real ideological battles lie at its core, and serious and unnerving questions persist about the kind of party Republicans want. Does the GOP privilege whites? Does conservatism mean hate? Can any guardrails stop the wild careening of conspiracy theories? Observers trace the current fissures to Carlson hosting Fuentes on his podcast in October, chumming it up with the heil Hitler-spouting troll to his millions of followers. That's true in the sense that the softball interview forced a choosing of sides. But it didn't come out of nowhere. Carlson a year earlier had hosted, and lauded, Darryl Cooper, known for various forms of Holocaust denial. A few months after that, Rogan hosted, and lauded, Ian Carroll, who proceeded to spew a host of sex-ring conspiracy theories about the Israeli government and a prominent Jewish person, dropping in references to the plans the "powerful Jewish people" are making (Rogan also hosted Cooper). And seven years before that, Kelly hosted, if didn't laud, a Sandy Hook-denying Jones. But the rift became impossible to ignore in the weeks following Carlson's Fuentes move, when Kevin Roberts - president of the Heritage Foundation, of Project 2025 fame - joined Kelly in defending Carlson and attacking his critics, some of whom rather inconveniently also worked for Roberts and sat on his board. Those critics decamped for a rival, a (for now) less hateful think tank founded by former Vice President Mike Pence. In the meantime, Kelly also has lauded Fuentes, saying on Carlson's show: "He's absorbing, and he's brilliant. And on a lot of things, there is value to be derived from that guy's messaging." Not to be outdone, Owens has spent much of her recent airtime telling viewers that Jews are the source of all the world's problems. Loomer struck back, Shapiro struck back, Jones struck back. You know things have gone bottom-up when Alex Jones becomes the voice of reason. It didn't move Carlson and Kelly - they stuck with Owens. How this all resolves depends on so many factors - global news events from Minneapolis to Tehran, the ongoing see-no-evil from the president and the cozying up by Vice President J.D. Vance to Carlson and Kelly, the limits to the conspiracy cravings of the American people. And it will in turn lead to many consequences, culminating in the 2028 Republican nominee and, even, the winner of the general election. But that lies off in the distance. Until then, we can only bear the fallout. The ground will quake further, personalities will skirmish harder, hate will pour stronger. The feuds' winners will shift weekly. Of course, with all of the likes and views, everyone involved can call themselves a victor. Only a citizenry prizing