The article discusses how the popularity of MAGA influencers is declining, with views on their YouTube channels and websites dropping significantly. According to the author, this is due in part to President Trump's policies, including his decision to start a war with Iran, which has split the voter base, and his failure to address inflation. The author notes that the movement has built no lasting institutions and has been marked by "pure populist rage," which ultimately leads to decline. Key numbers mentioned include the millions of views lost by MAGA influencer Benny Johnson on YouTube.
Written by the local model on 2026-09-05,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
The rabbit in the picture above is a breed known as a Flemish Giant.
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rabbit → know → Giant
Unfortunately, they only live to be about 7 or 8, much like very large dogs have short life spans.
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dogs → live → spans
Still, I highly recommend them as pets.
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I → recommend → pets
Anyway, I looked at the items in today’s roundup, and decided that many of them share the common theme of “unintended consequences”.
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many → look → consequences
Making sure that people understand the unintended consequences of their policies is a big part of what economists do.
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economists → make → what
That’s often easier said than done, of course.
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That → ’ → course
The MAGA wave is breaking and rolling back
Now here’s some good political news.
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news → break → ?
Audiences for MAGA influencers are falling off a cliff:
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Audiences → fall → cliff
The surge of attention he received on X has slowed to a trickle.
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he → receive → trickle
His loyalty to Mr. Trump has become unappealing to some Republicans who are frustrated with the rising cost of living and the president’s decision to start a war with Iran…
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who → become → Iran
Other high-profile right-wing influencers are contending with similar shifts of fortune…
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influencers → contend → fortune
Views are dropping for many of Mr. Trump’s greatest allies…
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Views → drop → allies
[Nick Fuentes] saw notable gains in 2025 and early 2026 but is now trending down.
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Fuentes → see → 2025
“It seems that everyone in the space is experiencing a drop-off in views from 2025,” Mr. Fuentes wrote…
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Fuentes → seem → 2025
[M]any right-wing websites have seen larger declines, including The Blaze and The Federalist.
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websites → see → Blaze
I’ve long predicted that MAGA is a wave that would ultimately break and recede.
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that → predict → ?
The movement has built no lasting institutions — no civic groups, no religious revival, no professional associations, no governmental institutions, nothing.
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movement → build → institutions
It’s a blast of pure populist rage, and those don’t ever last very long.
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those → ’ → rage
Trump’s blunders, of course, have hastened the decline.
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blunders → hasten → decline
The Iran war has naturally split a voter base who was told that they were voting against Middle Eastern wars.
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they → split → wars
Trump was elected to do something about inflation, but he hasn’t done anything; in fact, his tariffs have made it worse.
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it → elect → fact
The only campaign promise Trump has delivered on was reducing immigration, but it turns out that reducing immigration doesn’t actually make a material difference in the lives of Americans.
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reducing → deliver → Americans
To all this, add the typical thermostatic effect, wherein people consume more partisan media when their party is out of power.
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party → add → power
Trump is no longer the rebellion, so Republicans are less angry, so there’s less reason to sit around listening to media grifters whose whole shtick is to feed you constant ragebait.
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shtick → ’ → ragebait
Anyway, this just strengthens my long-held view that popular unrest has actually peaked in America and is on the decline.
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unrest → strengthen → decline
If the GOP can use this moment to throw off the yoke of the Trump personality cult and return to something approximating normalcy, I think we’ll have one more round of crazy (the DSA), and then perhaps go back to some semblance of reasonable, productive politics.
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we → use → politics
Why is the labor share falling?
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share → fall → ?
Since the turn of the century, workers have been taking home less and less of what the nation produces:
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nation → take → what
This fact has spawned a lot of discourse about AI taking jobs, the need to redistribute capital income, and so on.
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AI → spawn → income
Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick have two new blog posts explaining how a lot of the change you see on that graph might actually just be a statistical illusion due to some tax policy changes.
uncertain
you → have → changes
The first post explains the effect of the rise of pass-through corporations like S-corps.
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post → explain → corps
Basically, what a standard corporation would record as labor compensation often gets reclassified as profit:
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record → record → profit
In a paper with Danny Yagan and Matt Smith, we found that when a company converts from a C corporation to an S corporation, reported wages drop and reported profits jump…
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profits → find → corporation
A top-earning S corporation owner who pays herself in profit instead of wages avoids the 3.8% levy that applies to her wage income.
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that → earn → income
A C corporation owner has the opposite incentive.
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owner → have → incentive
Wages are deductible, so paying yourself a salary avoids the corporate tax and payout tax on dividends.
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paying → pay → dividends
By lowering individual income tax rates and increasing corporate tax burdens, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 made the S corporation the better deal, and a growing share of business owners have given that income the name “profit.”…
That change of label pulls down the measured labor share because the national accounts count S corporation profit as capital income.
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accounts → lower → income
When we add these recharacterized wages back into the labor income bucket, then the corporate labor share in 2017 is about 0.9 percentage points higher.
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share → add → 2017
The second post explains how the increasing tendency to pay employees in stock instead of cash makes it look as if labor income is lower than it is:
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it → explain → cash
A few years ago, Andrea Eisfeldt, Antonio Falato, and Mindy Z. Xiaolan (EFX) published a fascinating paper called “Human Capitalists,” which focused on the growing role of stock-based compensation for workers at public companies…
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which → publish → companies
…and 137 more, not listed.
