'Heir to the Trump movement': MAGA has reportedly found a successor to its leader
Former President Donald Trump has a big surrogate on the campaign trail, reported Politico, and he is increasingly viewed as someone who could actually take the mantle of Trumpism when the leader himself is gone.
That person is Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), far-right Freedom Caucus crusader and unapologetic Trump supporter, who is being rolled out to excite MAGA voters.
Gaetz, according to reporter Sam Stein, is viewed by the Trump faithful at his New Hampshire primary events "not so much as a surrogate for the campaign but as an heir to the Trump movement" — and Gaetz has even started "to physically resemble a Trump, with slicked back hair in the style of Trump’s actual sons. But most people who have flocked to his events say it is his political approach that reminds them of the former president. It’s precisely because he gets heckled that they love him."
At one of his more recent events, the report noted, Gaetz was hounded by one attendee about the House ethics investigation into him for allegations he helped transport a minor across state lines for sex — something that the FBI itself investigated but ultimately led to no charges.
Gaetz's popularity stumping for Trump among his rank and file supporters stands in stark contrast to how fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill view him, noted the report. To them, "He's a chaos agent, whose political convictions revolve around, largely, the promotion of Matt Gaetz. His role in ousting Speaker Kevin McCarthy ... weakened the party and left them in a state of disorder from which they have not recovered. His alleged ethical transgressions aren’t signs that he has the right enemies; if true, they’re illustrations of serious moral lapses."
Indeed, the report continued, Beltway Republicans would "be more than fine if he just went away."
But Trump's fans on the street by and large, love Gaetz precisely for these kinds of conflicts, with one, Bill Mitchell of Troy, New Hampshire, telling Politico, “It’s a little bit of crazy but the right kind of crazy. He does what he said he was going to do. And Trump did what he said he was going to do.”