Will MAGA split over Iran?
The war in Iran has probably ended any debate over whether President Donald Trump is an isolationist. He is not. But his onetime promises of military restraint abroad were part of his appeal to MAGA voters, some of whom now find themselves alarmed.
Many Trump voters “didn’t want to attack Iran. Now he has to win them over,” said Politico. Polling taken before the war began showed that just half of those voters supported military action against Iran, but nearly a third did not. If the war “expands into a protracted conflict, or ends up with troops on the ground, it will be a liability,” said GOP strategist Jason Roe.
MAGA influencers were already feuding before the attack on Iran, which has caused them to “deepen their civil war,” said MS NOW. War with Iran “is AMERICA LAST,” former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said on X. The administration’s shifting rationales for war are “to put it mildly, confused,” said right-wing podcaster Matt Walsh. Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson have also chimed in. But others are rooting for Trump. “Civilized people” in the West “will not bow down” to Islam, said influencer Laura Loomer.
Biggest war since Iraq
Trump and his pro-war congressional allies “think you’re stupid,” said Jack Hunter at The American Conservative. The president has failed to provide a “solid, pinpoint” reason for launching the war at “this very moment.” Most polls show that Americans “overwhelmingly” did not want this war, and the flailing justifications are “adding insult to injury.” No one should misunderstand: This is a war of choice “started by Donald Trump” that will reach its endpoint “only God knows how.”
The president in 2024 seemed to be the candidate “less likely to continue the Forever Wars,” conservative writer Rod Dreher said in his newsletter. Now the president has launched the United States’ “biggest war since Iraq.” When George W. Bush launched that 2002 invasion, he at least had 72% of the country behind him. Trump’s approval ratings these days are considerably lower. Congress is “sleepwalking” while Trump leads the country into a major war. “This is Caesar stuff. You know that, right?”
“Don’t confuse the Iran War’s MAGA critics with most Republicans,” David M. Drucker said at Bloomberg. Complaints from figures like Walsh and Greene “represent the minority opinion on the right.” The instincts of GOP voters are “little changed from the Reagan-Bush days,” said Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini. Even so, said Drucker, “cracks in the MAGA coalition may be showing.”
Trump embodies MAGA
While GOP voters have “largely supported” the war in Iran, the ongoing effort could still “challenge Trump’s ability to hold his base together,” Aaron Blake said at CNN. Polling suggests that while GOP support exists, that support is “pretty lukewarm.”
Trump may not be worried. Criticisms from Carlson, Kelly and other MAGA influencers are not a problem because “I think that MAGA is Trump,” the president said to independent journalist Rachel Bade. The MAGA movement “loves what I’m doing.”