Generally, Maga is less a coherent political movement than a vibe. Consistency just isn’t very important: crimes are bad if Democrats are doing them, but unimportant if Donald Trump is the one being accused, or convicted. The January 6 insurrectionists should be freed, but campus Gaza protesters should be locked up. Start mass deportations now, but not for the nice lady I know from church.
In other words, Maga has come to resemble the man it’s built around. Donald Trump is erratic, mercurial and self-serving, and his supporters know that and have, historically, been pretty much fine with it. They believe he can manage America’s economy and upset all the right people, and they’ll put up with his baggage provided they feel like he’s delivering on that.
But when it comes to Israel and Iran, Trump has risked breaking the longstanding deal with his supporters. The big attraction of Trump – in many ways, the whole point of him – is that he doesn’t resemble the staid, out-of-touch politicians Americans had become so tired of.
Maga supporters often decry the “uniparty”, accusing Democrats and Republicans of acting in concert with one another against the wishes of the American people – especially on foreign policy. This is at the core of Trump’s “America First” philosophy: the USA has had enough of being the world’s policeman, interfering in other countries’ wars, fixing (as they see it) other countries’ problems, and paying for their defence.
America was getting taken for a ride, and that needed to stop. Whatever Trump’s own sincere foreign policy views are, or were – if he even has any – Maga was always serious on this. They wanted out of Afghanistan, even if they thought Joe Biden botched the execution of the withdrawal, they largely don’t care about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and they’re sick of the Middle East.
Trump’s decisions over the last week, then, marked the first time he had truly tested the patience of the Maga movement.
It is far, far too early to say how that on the Fordo nuclear facility will work out in military and diplomatic terms, but in political terms Trump seems to have come out largely unscathed in the short run. While a few usually reliable Maga stalwarts, like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene, spoke out against the attack, most of Trump’s team abandoned their principles immediately and justified the strike.
JD Vance, a longtime opponent of American military action overseas, explained the difference between this strike and the others of recent decades was that those presidents were “dumb” and Donald Trump isn’t. Well, that’s that sorted, then.
Trump has managed to embarrass those defending his actions on TV more than once – not least by calling for regime change on social media after they had spent all day saying it wasn’t about that – but his coalition stumbled through.
square JAMES BALL This is JD Vance's chance to become president - and he is squandering it
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The danger for Trump is that the cracks in the façade are starting to show. He may be getting so volatile and unpredictable that even his most dedicated sycophants are unable to keep pace with him to cover it up.
The US President wrongfooted most of his own team, and much of America’s defence and intelligence establishment, when he launched his strikes against Iran – which he did without any kind of legal approval from Congress.
He then did it again when he suddenly announced a “forever” ceasefire on Monday evening, which was initially denied by Iran, only to be accepted and come into force on Tuesday morning; Israel claimed Iran had breached it in a matter of hours, which Tehran has denied. Trump is demonstrating why diplomacy is not usually conducted via social media without any kind of prep work or co-ordination behind the scenes.
Maga will forgive Trump a lot, especially if they think he is delivering for them. But when he goes against their core interests on the world stage, he is putting that assumption at risk. If he’s made to look weak, or indecisive, or confused on the world stage, his strongman image gets harder and harder to maintain.
Maga has kept the faith with Trump time and again, often when he was completely written off. But that doesn’t mean they always will. Trump has likely got away with his Iran venture, at least with his base – but he may yet have sown the seeds of his own political undoing.
James Ball is the political editor of the New World, which was formerly the New European
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