“It’s No Longer So Much Fun to Be MAGA in Washington,” claimed the headline in the New York Times. Sally Quinn’s op-ed indeed writes, “The MAGA Republicans don’t seem to be having such a good time ransacking the place anymore.” They’re “in despair, fearful and losing hope.”

It’s a mildly interesting thesis. But what’s her evidence? What MAGA types unburdened themselves to her about their sadness?

To get a sense of how MAGA is feeling in D.C. these days, she seems to have spoken to “the New York financier and Times Opinion contributor Steven Rattner and his wife, Maureen White, [who] had their popular annual cocktail buffet at the Hay Adams Hotel on the rooftop overlooking the White House.” He has also been a Democratic insider since forever, so I’m guessing the annual cocktail buffet isn’t particularly popular with MAGA.

Also quoted: Democratic Senator Mark Warner; former judge and anti-Trump activist Mike Luttig; “the presidential historian Michael Beschloss, who from Day 1 of Mr. Trump’s first term warned of a potential dictatorship”; and liberal editor Leon Wieseltier. (There is also a quote from Kellyanne Conway, but it’s from 2025 and concerns the mood of MAGA then.)

There is also this bit of crackerjack reporting:

The day before the cage fights, Cafe Milano, one of the hottest restaurants in Washington for the past 34 years, was packed. Much to the chagrin of some of the regulars, a number of the MAGA crowd in town for the U.F.C. event were there, including Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and David Ellison, whose Paramount+ had exclusive broadcast rights to the fights.

But the mood felt off. Less jubilant. As if they knew that the U.F.C. fights were really going to be the moment when MAGA jumped the shark.

So Sally Quinn sensed a mood, and the Times hit “publish.”