— The star of this classic Halloween movie, toasting her castmates during a special screening… at a cemetery. Cheers, witches.
Seeing Red
The “America First” Rebrand
What’s going on: Nobody appreciates the power of a good slogan like President Donald Trump. Since his first term, he’s touted “America First” as shorthand for his isolationist views on foreign policy and wars abroad. But these days, both Trump and other political players have employed the phrase to mean, well, whatever they want. Take conservative influencer and Trump ally Laura Loomer. As of last month, she’s pushing a new cause: advocating for a Ukraine-US alliance. Once a sharp critic of the country, Loomer recently told The Washington Post: “It is ‘America First’ to support Ukraine over Russia.” She now warns against Russian propaganda, has interviewed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (despite once calling him “a Jihadi apologist”), and even took an interview from a Ukrainian bomb shelter. She may have Trump's ear (to the relief of NATO allies), but is her message MAGA-approved?
A flipped script: “America First” has changed from a coherent-if-controversial foreign policy framework to a flexible political buzzword. Trump campaigned in 2024 on limiting America’s military commitments abroad, and said he’d end the Ukraine war within 24 hours (that didn’t age well). His attempts to redefine “America First” — especially since entering the war in Iran — have exposed cracks in the GOP ahead of the midterms. Even former ride-or-dies like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon have publicly called out the apparent contradictions, focusing on US-Israel relations. Now, others in the MAGA base are splitting hairs over the difference between “war” and “forever war,” perhaps to make sense of the president’s shifting approach. Even Democrats have begun to co-opt the phrase for their own political ends. If anyone can claim the slogan, the GOP’s messaging machine might need some retooling.
