What do MAGA voters say about U.S. foreign policy?
And is there a disconnect with what Trump says about it?
A new poll by the Ronald Reagan Institute compares the foreign policy views of Republican voters who consider themselves supporters of the Make America Great Again movement and Republican voters who don’t. It found that on every metric measured, self-identified MAGA Republicans are more hawkish and less isolationist than their non-MAGA counterparts.
For example, 51 percent of MAGA voters believe the United States should be “more engaged and take the lead” on foreign policy, while just 39 percent say the United States should be “less engaged and react to events” — a 12-point spread in favor of U.S. leadership. By contrast, only 48 percent of non-MAGA Republicans support more U.S. engagement, while 44 percent say we should be less engaged.
Similarly, when asked if “the U.S. has a moral obligation to stand up for human rights and democracy whenever possible in international affairs,” 73 percent of MAGA Republicans agree that we do, compared to 69 percent of non-MAGA Republicans. And 40 percent of MAGA voters “strongly agreed,” compared to just 33 percent of non-MAGA Republicans.
As for Ukraine, 70 percent of MAGA voters said it is important to the United States that Ukraine win the war with Russia, compared to 64 percent of non-MAGA Republicans. As for Taiwan, 67 percent of MAGA voters support “increasing U.S. military presence near Taiwan” to deter a Chinese invasion, compared to 55 percent of non-MAGA Republicans. 59 percent of MAGA voters support “increasing U.S. arms sales to Taiwan” to help deter China. Only 49 percent of non-MAGA Republicans do.
Other than the findings pertaining to Taiwan, these results surprised me, From them, Marc Thiessen concludes that MAGA isolationism is a myth.
But that conclusion depends on how one defines MAGA’s views. It’s reasonable to define them as the collective views of people who identify themselves as MAGA. However, I define them as the views of Donald Trump.
After all, Trump started the MAGA movement and remains its leader. And I believe that most MAGA voters will go along with whatever positions Trump insists upon regardless of whether these positions are the ones they express to pollsters in the abstract.
In any case, if Trump becomes president, it will be his views, not those of his MAGA supporters, that matter. And although Trump recently acknowledged that Ukraine’s survival as a nation is important to the U.S., he does not seem convinced that it’s important that Ukraine win the war against Russia. His priority appears to be ending the war. [NOTE: I wrote this post before watching tonight’s debate and therefore don’t know what Trump said about Ukraine during that event.]
As things stand now, the war cannot end without Ukraine agreeing to a significant loss of its territory, and Trump reportedly favors that resolution. This would be more of a win for Russia than for Ukraine.
It’s also unlikely that a Trump administration would adhere to the view, affirmed by MAGA Republicans in the poll, that the U.S. has a moral obligation to stand up for human rights and democracy whenever possible in international affairs. I don’t subscribe to that view, either. But my point for present purposes is the disconnect between the views MAGA voters expressed to pollsters and the views Trump expresses. And, again, it’s Trump’s views that will matter if he’s elected president.
There is, though, a silver lining in the poll results, from my perspective. They suggest that Trump hasn’t changed the foreign policy instincts of his supporters, as a group. Thus, once Trump finally leaves the stage, those who supported him will tend to back leaders less ambivalent than Trump about a robust American involvement in international affairs and about standing up to enemies such as Vladimir Putin. Leaders like Tom Cotton and unlike the current incarnation of J.D. Vance .
Right now I have one concern. Does he believe it is a vital American interest to defeat the Iranian axis and stand in solidarity with our friend and ally Israel? If the answer is yes he has my vote because it's the opposite of what the current administration believes. And given how things have played out I have zero confidence that any Democrat who replaces the senile Cypher would be any better. Biden's policy seems to be Republican orthodoxy unless he is replaced by John Fetterman.