On April 3, at a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump spotted in the audience a woman his aides were desperate to keep away from him: the far-right provocateur and failed congressional candidate Laura Loomer. Even in MAGA circles, Loomer is regarded as a loose cannon who loves to get attention from inflammatory comments that undermine the Republican Party. But Trump doesn’t share the squeamishness of conventional politicians. In fact, he gave a shout-out to Loomer, saluting her as “a woman with courage.” Trump added an important caution: 

You don’t want to be Loomered. If you’re Loomered, you’re in big trouble. It’s the end of your career, in a sense!

Yet, despite this wise warning, Trump is allowing himself to be Loomered. In the face of considerable opposition from Trump’s other advisers, Loomer has emerged as an important unofficial adviser to the former president. She flew with Trump down to Philadelphia when he debated Kamala Harris. Loomer was part of the small entourage that accompanied Trump to an event in New York memorializing the 9/11 terrorist attack. Loomer’s attendance at the commemoration raised eyebrows, since she had previously asserted that 9/11 was “an inside job.”

Trump’s coinage “Loomered” is a curious word. It seems to mean something like “being made a pariah for provocative speech.” That is something Loomer herself has often experienced. In 2017, she responded to the statement that 2,000 migrants had died crossing the Mediterranean that year by quipping, “Good. 👏 Here is to 2,000 more.” That same year she appeared on a podcast called Nationalist Public Radio and affirmed that she was “pro-white nationalism,” adding:

“But there’s a difference between white nationalism and white supremacy. Right? And a lot of liberals and left-wing globalist Marxist Jews don’t understand that…. So this country really was built as the white Judeo-Christian ethnostate, essentially. Over time, immigration and all these calls for diversity, it’s starting to destroy this country.”

Because of her bigoted comments, she’s been banned on various occasions from a wide variety of platforms, financial services, and transportation companies, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, PayPal, Venmo, GoFundMe, Lyft and Uber. Loomer’s status as persona non grata with the last two companies arose out of her demand that she be served by non-Muslim drivers.

Presidential candidates usually stay away from avid white nationalists, but Trump clearly sees such open racists as an important part of his coalition. This is why in November 2022 he dined with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and the antisemitic musician Kanye West.

Trump had actually proposed hiring Loomer to join his staff in the spring of 2023. As The New York Times reported on April 7, 2023:

Some of Mr. Trump’s aides were said to have concerns that such a hire would cause a backlash, given her history of inflammatory statements and her embrace of the Republican Party’s fringes.

That proved to be correct: The New York Times’s report on the potential hire ignited a firestorm among some of Mr. Trump’s most vocal conservative supporters, and by late Friday, a high-ranking campaign official said Ms. Loomer was no longer going to be hired.

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But Loomer has the indefatigable energy and go-getting spirit of the true fanatic—or perhaps the true self-promoter. Even as Trump’s aides worked to keep her at bay, she was able to use her connections with other far-right allies in Trump’s circle to keep herself in the eyes of a former president. In the classic Anita Loos novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925), the gold-digging flapper Lorelei Lee (played by Marilyn Monroe in the 1953 film adaptation) has a preternatural skill for capturing the eyes of wealthy men. Although Loomer is interested (it seems) in political conquests rather than romantic ones, she and Loos’s heroine have a similar set of tactics. Loomer may not be a blonde (she has ink-black hair, enlivened by red highlights), but she could teach Lorelei Lee a thing or two.

In a superb profile of Loomer published in The Washington Post on May 3, reporter Kara Voght made clear that Loomer’s behavior shaded into that of a stalker. As Voght recounts:

It would be easy enough for Laura Loomer to prove how much she means to Donald Trump. She just needed a way for us to bump into him.

The plan: Leave Vero Beach at 9 a.m. on Wednesday morning. That would give us enough time to swing by Starbucks—“I’m not one of those conservatives who hates Starbucks,” Loomer said—and hit Interstate 95 southbound as rush hour waned. Arrive at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach around 11:30 a.m.; her name would be on the list, as a guest of a club member who routinely plays golf with the former president. Head to the oak-paneled dining room, or maybe the veranda, for lunch. Trump would finish his round of golf not long after that. If he came by the dining area—though he often came by the dining area—he would say hello.

That plan didn’t come off, but on other occasions Loomer was able to get Trump’s attention. Loomer’s success in worming her way into Trump’s court is due to a psychological quirk of the former president. Trump, found by a court to be liable for sexual assault, is often rough on women but has no desire for reciprocal treatment. Quite the reverse: He loves to be pampered by women and has created a harem of handmaidens tasked with soothing him. In the past, the role of Trump-pamperer has been held by figures such as Kellyanne Conway and Hope Hicks. Loomer was smart enough to realize there was an opening for a new handmaiden.

Normally, politicians and celebrities don’t seek out the company of their stalkers, but Trump remains unique. As a part of Trump’s inner circle, Loomer is already causing divisions, since her racism is too overt even for many MAGA politicians who themselves are seen as incendiary. Last Sunday, Loomer posted a picture of the young Kamala Harris with her family. Loomer commented:

If @KamalaHarris wins, the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center and the American people will only be able to convey their feedback through a customer satisfaction survey at the end of the call that nobody will understand.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, hardly an emblem of woke culture, denounced this post as “appalling and extremely racist. It does not represent who we are as Republicans or MAGA. This does not represent President Trump.”

Loomer then counterattacked by claiming Greene herself is a racist who likes to use the n-word. Loomer also brought up Greene’s comments about Jewish space lasers and for good measure accused her of adultery and having an intimate relationship with former House speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Responding to criticism from South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, Loomer characterized the lawmaker as a closeted gay man.

Loomer’s ability to create rifts in the GOP is wonderful news for Democrats. As the famous meme from a Godzilla movie says, “Let them fight.”

The fact that Trump has taken Loomer into his fold as an ad hoc adviser is proof of how central racism and xenophobia are to his presidential bid. But Loomer’s lack of control and propensity for interparty squabbling could hurt the former president. Trump has Loomered himself—and we should hope the Loomering continues.