Many Republican supporters are bewildered and furious. Regardless of who they vote for, from libertarian to conservative candidates, from neoconservatives to Tea Party members, including the leader of the MAGA movement, their presidents end up breaking promises and bombing the Middle East, seeking regime changes, getting entangled in distant, expensive, and dangerous wars. If the precedents were bad, Donald Trump's case is scandalous, because his campaign program revolved precisely around the idea of breaking with decades of circular history, mocking the "warmongers," attacking the corrupt "establishment" in Washington that advocated for being the world's police.
Trump's interventionist fever had caused serious rifts within his movement in recent months, especially among the faction most critical of Israel. Saturday's bombings have only fueled that growing discontent. Tucker Carlson, one of the gurus of the American right, former star presenter of Fox News, a friend of the president, and a staunch critic of military operations in the region, has described the US and Israeli attack on Iran as "absolutely disgusting and perverse", warning that it will have a huge impact among the Trumpism base. "This is going to profoundly change the rules of the game," he warned the day after being at the White House trying to convince the president to focus on the domestic agenda.
Trump controls the MAGA movement and is convinced that his millions of voters and followers will adapt their beliefs to his preferences. The problem is that, as seen with the Epstein case, it is not always the case. In most issues, he has managed to make the public follow his lead, whatever it may be. But not in everything. "Last year, Charlie Kirk told us all that the younger generation of Americans is much more interested in domestic politics than in resolving international conflicts, and we cannot forget that in a year of legislative elections," warned activist and influencerJack Posobiec, insisting that citizens "do not want more wars" and that public opinion, especially the country's youth, is becoming pro-Palestinian for the first time in history. "Americans want arrests for the Epstein case, for fraud, deportations, not wars."
"I didn't campaign for this. I didn't donate money for this. I didn't vote for this, neither in the elections nor in Congress. This is heartbreaking and tragic. And how many more innocent people will die? What about our own military? This is not what we thought MAGA should be. What a shame!" wrote former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green on her social media, for years the most fervent supporter of the president and a MAGA symbol, but fallen from grace, estranged from Trump, and labeled a "traitor" for disagreeing precisely on military operations and the lack of transparency in the Epstein case.
Reagan Box, one of the two Republican candidates to replace Taylor Greene in Georgia, stated yesterday that while she supports Trump and is part of the MAGA movement base, she is against the attacks on Iran. "Although the ayatollahs are atrocious, every time we try a regime change, especially in the Middle East, all we achieve is destabilizing it," she told Reuters on Saturday.
Steve Bannon, the great guru of the global alt-right, has been trying for months to convince the president and his circle not to attack Iran and to stay away from the Middle East. In vain. "Tehran is not the problem (...) if they created an Islamic republic, it's their problem (...) Our focus right now should be on Minneapolis. That's where the insurrection is," he insisted just two days ago, begging Trump to focus his attention and efforts on internal revolution, not on external distractions that can break his base. His program on Saturday was almost solely focused on this issue.
The bleeding is total. The Hodgetwins, two conservative brothers with a highly followed podcast boasting 3.5 million followers, criticized the bombings throughout Saturday. "Liberating the people of Iran is not why I voted for Trump," they said in a tweet. "President Trump has COMPLETELY LIED to his voters, betrayed our country, and dishonored his legacy beyond repair at this point, the greatest downfall I have ever seen," they added later.
"NO ONE WANTS THIS WAR", lamented former fighter Andrew Tate, a recognized misogynist, accused of human trafficking, and released for being an ally of Trump and a friend of his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Barron. "Oh, how disgusting. Shame on you, Mr. President," wrote radical activist Milo Yiannopoulos, close to the president in his first term. "NO TO WAR WITH IRAN. ISRAEL IS DRAGGING US INTO WAR. AMERICA FIRST," urged neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, whose influence among MAGA youth is significant.
Even among the most radical and loyal ranks, well represented by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who made a fortune denying that school shootings with dozens of dead children were real, have shown their rejection of the bombings. "It was supposed to be America First," he said on his show on Saturday. "This wasn't it," he added in reference to reports of a possible massacre in a children's school due to the Israeli bombings. "If Trump has justified what he did today in Iran based on the attack on American soldiers in the 80s, imagine what they will do in the future," he warned. He concluded: "I warned that we would end up doing regime changes because that's what Israel wants, and they called me a traitor."