Ex-Trump supporter learns loyalty is a one-way street

From now on, far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos will have to promote his fringe conspiracies and racial controversies in Great Britain after being deported by the U.S. last month.An early and staunch supporter of Donald Trump, Yiannopoulos was arrested by ICE just a few weeks after hurling unfound accusations at conservative podcaster Benny Johnson and Laura Loomer, a close ally of the president. Loomer seemed to be quite the happy pundit last week publicly taking credit for Yiannopoulos' deportation.Yiannopoulos was previously deported almost a decade earlier after becoming an early and prominent supporter of Trump's initial presidential campaign. His influence was fleeting at best. In a 2017 video, he advocated adult sexual relations with boys as young as 13 and seemed to minimize pedophilia by Roman Catholic priests.At the time, such disturbing comments cost him a lucrative book deal, then his position at Breitbart and an invitation to speak at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, also known as CPAC. It's such a delicious irony this adamantly anti-Muslim, pro-immigrant crackdown, pro-ICE, pro-deportation individual has now suddenly found himself a victim of such restrictive policies.Yiannopoulos has a long and sordid history of making outlandish, abrasive, and offensive comments about marginalized groups. He has been all too eager to assist in the conservative right's dirty work. In an interview he informed Tucker Carlson "mainstreaming homosexuality in the Republican Party is the great regret of my life."As for his many flaws, Yiannopoulos larged received a pass from the far right, people for whom racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. are de rigueur. He also kept his eye on national politics, working on the 2024 presidential campaign of Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who fell from grace after praising Adolf Hitler and making a series of anti-Semitic comments.Yiannopoulos should have known from the outset the "inclusion" afforded to him was temporary at best and came with strings attached. He would have to genuflect to his far-right audience and financial benefactors, could never speak ill of real racists and homophobes in the conservative ranks, and had to hammer the left ruthlessly by increasingly ramping up his acerbic, acid-tongue rhetoric. By pleasing his benefactors, he would receive ample compensation from right-of-center business groups and conservative political organizations.His recent attacks on the Trump administration aroused the wrath of largely intolerant mainstream conservatives.Modern-day conservative politics is deeply populated with numerous officials and candidates who have demonstrated fierce and unmistakable allegiance toward Donald Trump and the larger MAGA movement. They expect the commander in chief would reward such loyalty only to recognize the dispiriting and demoralizing realization that he would throw them to the wolves when they needed his support. Mike Pence, Kevin McCarthy, Reince Priebus, Mo Brooks, Ronna McDaniell, Elise Stefanik, etc. all suffered the same fate.Loyalty is something Trump expects to receive, not reciprocate. We can now add Milo Yiannopoulos to the list of the disregarded allies who learned this humiliating lesson.No one should feel too sorry for Yiannopoulos. Like many fabulists, he is likely plotting his return to the public arena. To quote P.T. Barnum, "a sucker is born every minute." Thus, we can expect Milo to charm and weave his way successfully into the good graces of some gullible factions looking for a colorful personality, no matter how morally flawed or compromised. Yiannopoulos is well suited for such a task. – Copyright 2026 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.