Is MAGA Becoming Pro-War?
This summer, President Donald Trump asserted that “America First” is a term he can define at will, a statement that has taken on new urgency as he escalates military actions near Venezuela. With threats of airspace closures, military buildups, and intentions to oust the Venezuelan leadership, Trump is pushing the boundaries of what his administration’s foreign policy represents. His initial appeal to an “America First” doctrine was a strategic pivot that resonated with a war-weary electorate tired of prolonged military engagements, distinguishing him from traditional Republican figures associated with the Iraq War. However, this recent shift towards interventionism has drawn criticism, particularly from Senator Rand Paul, a vocal opponent of military overreach within the GOP. Paul argues that Trump’s hawkish approach, influenced by figures like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Senator Lindsey Graham, could alienate the very base that once supported a non-interventionist stance.
While Trump’s base appears to support military action in Venezuela—with 66% of MAGA Republicans favoring intervention according to a CBS/YouGov poll—there is notable dissent within the party and among the general public. Non-MAGA Republicans show a more cautious approach, with 47% supporting military action and 53% opposing it. This split is echoed by prominent MAGA figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Laura Loomer, who have recently voiced opposition to intervention, highlighting a growing divide within the party. Moreover, a significant 70% of Americans overall oppose war with Venezuela, suggesting that Trump’s aggressive posture may not align with public sentiment. As Trump navigates this complex political landscape, he seems to disregard the broader implications of military engagement, raising questions about the sustainability of his “America First” rhetoric in light of potential military consequences reminiscent of past conflicts like Iraq. The situation underscores the precarious nature of relying on presidential discretion in foreign policy, especially when the ramifications of such decisions can be profound and far-reaching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waqsFvZf4tw
This summer, President Donald Trump told my colleague Michael Scherer that “America First” means
whatever he decides
it means. Now—as he blows up boats near Venezuela, amasses military assets near its coast, calls for the closure of its airspace, and tries to oust its leader—he is testing the limits of the term.
Trump took over the GOP promising an “America First” foreign policy to a war-weary nation that had soured on attempts to police and reshape the world. Doing so distinguished him from rivals aligned with George W. Bush and the Iraq War. But Trump was
never ideologically committed
to restraint. The most outspoken critic of the president’s latest hawkish turn is Senator Rand Paul, who has blamed the influence of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Senator Lindsey Graham. If Trump invades Venezuela, the Republican from Kentucky told Nick Gillespie of
Reason
magazine,
“his movement will dissolve.”
Trump says land strikes inside Venezuela are
coming soon
and
dismisses Paul
as “a sick Wacko, who refuses to vote for our great Republican Party, MAGA, or America First.”
Casting Paul, of all people, as a foe of “America First” is a hard sell. His father, Ron Paul, ran for president three times as an anti-war libertarian. When the GOP was still enamored of Bush, Dick Cheney, and their most hawkish allies, Rand Paul was already a stalwart antagonist of the foreign-policy establishment, critiquing wars launched by Bush and Barack Obama and urging Congress to stop new wars. Campaigning for Trump in 2020, Paul told the Republican National Convention, “He believes, as I do, that a strong America cannot fight endless wars.”
Trump and Paul have shared skepticism of some wars, but for different reasons. Trump trusts his gut and feels entitled to act on it, untethered from any principles or the rule of law. Paul’s positions, meanwhile, are rooted in constitutional conservatism: He is not just consistently skeptical of wars of choice and averse to most foreign interventions; he believes wars detrimental to America are best avoided by adhering to a Constitution that gives the war power to Congress, rather than allowing the president to unilaterally decide the nation’s fate. “As James Madison wrote, ‘No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.’ Which is one reason why,” Paul
argued
in 2016, “the Constitution clearly puts war-making powers overwhelming in the hands of the legislature.”
So far, Trump’s base supports his pivot to hawkish interventionism in Venezuela: 66 percent of MAGA Republicans would favor the United States taking military action in the country, according to a
recent poll
by CBS News and YouGov. “It’s not just that Trump is a warmonger,” former Representative Justin Amash
complained
on Tuesday in a post on X. “It’s that he has convinced a large segment of Republicans who said they were done with warmongering to embrace warmongering again.” This seems to include Republicans in the administration: For example, after years of publicly espousing anti-interventionist beliefs, Vice President J. D. Vance
called
one of the administration’s strikes on a suspected drug boat off the Venezuelan coast “the highest and best use of our military.”
Non-MAGA Republicans seem more skeptical of war in Venezuela: 47 percent favor military action and 53 percent oppose it, according to the CBS/YouGov poll. And some prominent MAGA figures are opposed too, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, Laura Loomer, and Steve Bannon. Loomer, who previously supported Trump’s targeted strike in Iran (and lambasted Tucker Carlson for his criticism of the bombing), is now speaking out against Republican members of Congress who support intervention in Venezuela. Some anti-immigration
advocates on the right
have also argued that war would undercut Trump’s broader immigration goals.
Among Americans as a whole,
fully 70 percent
oppose a war with Venezuela. But assuming Trump does not usurp the constitutional order by trying for a third term, he will never again face voters, so if there are political consequences for a failed war in Venezuela, as there were for the war in Iraq, other politicians––perhaps Rubio or
Vance
––will suffer them. Maybe that’s why Trump, who has yet to make a forthright case for his Venezuela policy to Congress or the public, acts as though the will of American voters is the last thing on his mind.
Trump’s behavior toward Venezuela illustrates the folly of relying on any president to eschew risky interventions abroad. Though American-led regime change could prove costly, bloody, destabilizing, or
counterproductive to American interests
in the region, and though it appears less necessary to national security at the outset than did the Iraq War (no one is looking for weapons of mass destruction in Venezuela), Trump talks as if acts of war are imminent––and as if his orders alone matter. Never mind the voters who took his “America First” promises to mean something different.
