A self-described “wife supremacist” and “MAGA fertility fanatic” lit a fuse inside conservative media this weekend — and then watched it blow back in her face.
Peachy Keenan, the pseudonymous pro-natalist author who has credited President Donald Trump with inspiring her to have more children, drew fierce criticism from fellow conservatives after claiming she has “never met” an immigrant who came to the United States in search of freedom or individual liberty.
“I have never met a single immigrant, legal or illegal, who moved to the United States because they longed to experience things like freedom of expression, free speech, individual liberty, or representational democracy,” Keenan wrote Sunday on X. “They move here for the money, bro. Even the ones on my side!”
She followed up by declaring that “America is not an idea,” but rather “an ATM machine for immigrants,” and then offered her own definition of who qualifies as a “real” American.
The blunt take might have fit neatly into the current MAGA ecosystem — especially as Trump continues to lash out at immigrants, recently calling Somali Americans “garbage.” Instead, Keenan triggered a rare moment of conservative pile-on.
Writers, commentators, and media figures from across the right blasted the claim as ignorant, ahistorical, and divorced from lived experience.
“I have a bunch of Baha’i friends I grew up with who escaped from the Ayatollah’s regime in the late ’70s and early ’80s to America who would laugh at this,” wrote Jeff Blehar, “if they weren’t too busy being American citizens.”
Charles C. W. Cooke, who emigrated from the United Kingdom in 2011 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018, responded with a two-word rebuttal: “Hi.”
Conservative radio host Erick Erickson pointed to his own family and neighbors. “My grandfather immigrated from Sweden because he wanted to be American,” Erickson wrote. “My neighbor came here from India because he wanted freedom and an escape from the caste system. Get out more and meet people.”
Gabriella Hoffman, a staffer at the Independent Women’s Forum, said Keenan’s assertion clashed with nearly every immigrant story she knew. “My parents came to the U.S. 40 years ago next month,” Hoffman wrote. “They came here to enjoy freedom, free speech, constitutional rights, and free enterprise denied to them by their Russian occupiers.”
The criticism only intensified.
“Tell me you haven’t met many immigrants without saying you haven’t met many immigrants,” wrote Dan McLaughlin, recalling a Cuban-born Spanish teacher who “didn’t flee Castro dreaming of making a fortune teaching sullen teenagers on a Catholic school salary.”
Commentary editor John Podhoretz was less restrained. “Tell me you’re an idiot any more competently than this blazingly stupid tweet,” he wrote, “and I’ll give you a cookie.”
Even conservative speaker and podcaster Ian Haworth split the difference. “Actually, it was freedom of expression, free speech, individual liberty, representational democracy, and money,” he noted.
As the backlash grew, Keenan attempted to clarify her position. Responding to an Iranian user who said, “We Iranians are here for freedom,” Keenan said she wasn’t claiming such immigrants don’t exist — only that she hadn’t “personally met many.”
“I’m sure a lot of mid-century migration was driven by fleeing tyranny,” she wrote.
By Monday morning, the retreat had become explicit. Keenan added a final qualifier to her original claim.
“*Under age 60,” she posted.
What began as a swaggering MAGA talking point ended as a reminder of a deeper fracture inside the movement — one where even Trump-aligned conservatives balk at rewriting America’s immigration story as nothing more than a cash grab.
