Just caught up on something interesting happening in the conservative media space. There's this growing divide between the old-guard Republican women—people like Mona Charen, Barbara Comstock, and others who used to be close to the party establishment—and what's emerging as this new MAGA-aligned 'Womanosphere' movement. The contrast is pretty stark.

What grabbed my attention is how figures like Riley Gaines and Allie Beth Stuckey have become these prominent voices on the right, and they're pushing a specific narrative: that compassion and empathy are actually obstacles to the MAGA agenda. Stuckey even wrote a whole book called 'Toxic Empathy' making this argument. And they're applying this lens to how they view ICE enforcement and immigration policy—basically saying that humanitarian concerns shouldn't get in the way.

The Guardian ran a piece on this back in late January that really digs into how this 'Womanosphere' operates. These are mostly white Christian conservative women promoting what they call gender-essentialist ideas, and they've become pretty effective at mobilizing their followers around Trump's messaging. What's interesting—and honestly a bit concerning—is how they handle dissent. According to former evangelical April Ajoy, if you don't align with every single position they promote, you risk getting ostracized. That's a pretty rigid ideological structure.

Meanwhile, the women who stepped away from this—whether it's someone like Sarah Longwell, who's built significant influence as a conservative pollster and organizer, or others in that camp—they're just not in the mainstream conversation anymore. Their absence has basically created space for this new faction to dominate the narrative on the right.

It's a fascinating shift in how conservative media and activism is organizing itself, especially around questions of morality and policy enforcement.