The Online Right and the Republican Party

A few days ago I watched a New York Times Opinions conversation between Michelle Cottle, Jamelle Bouie and David French on the state of the Republican Party right now (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azws2YMZKqE).

French made a comment that interested me:

"...MAGA is, believe it or not, more online than the wokest woke people on the left in 2019 and 2020. They have taken the problem that Democrats had in the recent past — being too online — and they’ve turned that one to 11, to the point where you now have major figures in the Trump administration who are much more focused on what obscure, angry podcasters on the right say about them than they are concerned about a 38 percent approval rating in the larger public.

They’re constantly tacking toward the pet angry issues of the MAGA podcasting base, and that’s just going to make all of this worse. That just reinforces the walls of the bubble."

It gave me the idea to do this cartoon on how the online Right has an outsized influence on both the Trump administration and the Republican Party.

Here is a youtube video showing my process in creating this cartoon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN96GvaK7Bc

REFERENCES
"Republicans Are Quietly Pushing Back Against Trump" by Jamelle Bouie, Michelle Cottle and David French for The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/06/opinion/trump-declining-popularity-c…

"The Online Right’s Conspiracy Faction Keeps Getting Crazier" by Jim Geraghty for The National Review
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-online-rights-consp…

"How Right-Wing Media Ate the Republican Party" a podcast episode of The Ezra Klein Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeRwa_GQzS8

"The Rise of Conservative Illiberalism and the Parallel Ascendance of Right-Wing Surrogates" by Steven Feldstein for Oxford Academic
https://academic.oup.com/book/60493/chapter/522480455

"Far-right news sites have been radicalizing Republican politicians and are dividing the party." by Mike Cowburn and Curd Knupfer for LSE
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2023/03/30/far-right-news-sites-have-…

"The ‘Groyperfication’ of the G.O.P." by Ezra Klein for The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-john-ganz…