by Thaddeus G. McCotter
Trump's strike on Iran split his MAGA base—yet his limited success bridged the divide, uniting skeptics and hawks behind “The Peace President.”
As events in the Middle East escalated between Israel and Iran, there was a clear division within President Trump’s MAGA base as to how he should or should not navigate the crisis. It was a political high-wire act during a time of immense international tension, and a single misstep by Mr. Trump could have led to more than the mere end of the MAGA coalition.
The non-interventionist wing of MAGA vociferously argued that the president should not become involved. Many of these supporters were not – and many still are not – self-identified Republicans. Rather, they are former Democrats, Reform Party members, and/or Tea Party members, who have long opposed the blood and treasure lost due to reckless American foreign interventions. Additionally, among this wing are many traditional GOP voters who felt burned by the Bush administration during both the Iraq and, to a lesser degree, Afghanistan Wars, and have linked arms with these other Trump voters in opposing “nation building.” The scuttlebutt has it that Vice President Vance is in this camp. However, once the president made his decision, Mr. Vance was solidly, publicly behind him.
The more traditional foreign policy supporters advocated for U.S. involvement in the Israel versus Iran battle. Many of these Trump supporters, while sharing the concerns—and yes, the anger—of non-interventionists over past foreign policy debacles, nonetheless believed that Iran, whose barbarous rulers and their adherents screech “Death to America” and, in fact, killed American soldiers in Iraq, must never possess a nuclear weapon. Simply, it would provide Iran a nuclear shield that would allow it to remain the world’s largest exporter of terrorism. This was, of course, President Trump’s avowed position. Consequently, this more interventionist wing urged the president to seize this opportunity to use the military power of the United States to destroy the nuclear facilities of the Iranian regime. This time, the scuttlebutt had Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio in this camp, and, like Vice President Vance, once the president made his decision, there was no daylight between the commander-in-chief and Mr. Rubio.
As history will record, Mr. Trump managed to navigate both wings of his MAGA base, and, despite the seemingly irreconcilable differences between the two distinct sets of supporters, the only thing that was destroyed was the Iranian nuclear program.
During much of the run up to America’s intervention, Mr. Trump often issued contradictory statements that alternately gave both hope and heartburn to each wing of his MAGA base: he was for negotiations; he was against negotiations; he was against regime change; he could support regime change; he was for a two-week extension to see if more negotiations could avoid a U.S. strike; he ordered the U.S. air strike—the successful U.S. air strike.
This point cannot be emphasized enough. Success does, indeed, have many parents; and it also helps to glue a fraying base back together. So, too, the limited nature of the American intervention (even with our covert collaboration with our Israeli allies) in both its targets and timing, united the two divergent MAGA wings behind the president.
True, there are some lone voices in the wilderness arguing the president has not finished the job of eradicating all the potential nuclear facilities and/or the Iranian regime itself. One cannot help but wonder if such individuals are really supporters, because they are doing him a favor, as their argument only serves to enhance the president’s standing in the eyes of the non-interventionist wing. Indeed, the more it is claimed the president did not go far enough, the more this wing will appreciate his forbearance in the face of Deep State warmongering demands. Meanwhile, the more traditionalist foreign policy wing will remain solidly behind a president who kept his word to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons, and did not run the risk of repeating the “nation-building” debacles of the past. Alternatively, Mr. Trump, “The Peace President,” has announced that Israel and Iran have agreed to a ceasefire (as of the time of this writing).
President Trump’s successful MAGA tightrope walk has valuable political lessons regarding how presidents can skillfully navigate challenges within their base when authorizing the use of force against an enemy. But it also provides policymakers a clear indication of where the general public stands on American interventionism, particularly the use of military power.
For the most part, Democrats were loath to support President Trump for anything, including the use of force to destroy Iran’s nuclear bomb program—Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa.) being a rare exception. Yet, even in the absence of Mr. Trump, both large swaths of Democrats and MAGA agree in their mutual opposition to the use of military adventurism and its concomitant “nation building.” The painful scars of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars are bipartisan. Future American intervention will need to be along the lines of Operation Midnight Hammer: successfully meeting clear objectives in a brief kinetic window.
It is a lesson future presidents would be wise to heed, lest they become the next Lyndon Johnson, mired in an unpopular war.
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An American Greatness contributor, the Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter (M.C., Ret.) served Michigan’s 11th Congressional district from 2003-2012. He served as Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee and as a member of the Financial Services, Joint Economic, Budget, Small Business, and International Relations Committees. Not a lobbyist, he is also a contributor to Chronicles; a frequent public speaker and moderator for public policy seminars and a co-host of “John Batchelor: Eye on the World” on CBS radio, among sundry media appearances.
Thaddeus G. McCotter
Source: https://amgreatness.com/2025/06/28/mr-trumps-successful-maga-tightrope-walk/
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