As Donald Trump wages war in Iran, a political battle is raging among his supporters at home. The anti-war wing of the MAGA movement is vying with the interventionists for control of the GOP’s future. And the non-interventionists are torn between their investment in Trump and their commitment to principle.
Step by step, Trump’s more dovish supporters have had to accustom themselves to his frequent use of military force. His killing of Qasem Soleimani in January 2020 upset many on the non-interventionist right, but it didn’t stop Trump from campaigning four years later as a man who had started no new wars in his first term. He did involve America in a new war when he bombed Iran’s nuclear sites six months into his second term, yet that intervention ended with a ceasefire just two days later. Then came the capture of Nicolás Maduro, a regime change—or at least decapitation—so swift and surgical that the anti-war wing of MAGA barely felt it.
