Only a couple of years ago, it was hard to imagine Donald Trump starting another war in the Middle East. He and his vice president JD Vance ran on essentially a pro peace ticket in 2024, promising to negotiate speedy exits from Gaza and Ukraine and wind down the network of global alliances that Washington once considered sacred and Trump himself rose to political prominence as a critic of George Bush’s neo conservative foreign policy, describing the war in Iraq as a big fat mistake during the 2016 primaries.
In this light, it shouldn’t come as a total surprise that Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran has provoked a fair bit of backlash from a number of prominent figures within the MAGA movement, including some inside the administration itself. So the first thing to say is that while there is a divide within certain parts of MAGA over Iran, it’s not amongst the rank and file who are overwhelmingly supportive of Trump’s Iran policy.
According to an analysis by data journalist Ellie Macau Dawson, who basically aggregated every Iran related poll carried out between February the 28th and March the 11th, the war is really quite popular with Republicans. 77% of Republicans apparently approve of Trump’s military action in Iran, while just 13% disapprove of it, implying a net approval rating of plus 64%, higher than Trump scores on any other policy issue apart from immigration.
This is not because old school neocons in the GOP are outnumbering more MAGA minded newcomers. In fact, basically every pollster has found that the war is more popular with the MAGA Republicans than non-MAGA Republicans. Nor does this reflect some narrowing of MAGA. In other words, it’s not just because fewer Republicans are identifying as MAGA, leaving a small minority of hyper loyal die heart. In fact, according to the latest Yougov poll, 63% of Republicans and 25% of all voters currently identify as MAGA, a record high and up from about 50% last year.
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Now, these polls might come as a bit of a shock, after all if MAGA was supposed to be about extricating America from its various foreign policy entanglements, why are MAGA rank and file apparently so supportive of another foreign entanglement and one that is already looking like a quagmire?
Well, some of this is down to the fact that while we often think of them as one and the same, MAGA and the isolationists are actually two quite distinct factions within the Republican party. An analysis by the economist from last year, for instance, identified five tribes within the modern GOP, with the largest being the so-called culture warriors, who account for something like 30% of the party and who could probably be most closely identified with MAGA, and the smallest being the isolationists. The isolationists account for just 10% of the party and have very different views on foreign policy to other Republicans.
Most notably, isolationists staunchly oppose the idea of using troops to protect America’s allies, a proposition that’s conversely very popular with every other faction in the GOP. But it’s also because even if some of them might have originally been wary of another foreign intervention in the Middle East, MAGA voters and Republicans more generally have a habit of changing their minds when Trump changes his.
This is not a dig at Republicans specifically. This happens on both sides of the aisle in the US in large part because American politics is incredibly polarized which means Republicans instinctively support whatever Democrats don’t and vice versa. But this phenomenon has become particularly pronounced under Trump because of the unpredictability of its policy agenda which has forced some quite sudden changes in Republican opinion.
We saw this with both the strikes against Iran last year and with Trump’s intervention in Venezuela. Before last year’s Iran strikes, for instance, when Trump was signaling his preference for negotiation over military action, just 23% of Republicans thought the US should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran. After the strikes, however, 69% of Republicans said they approved of them. Similarly, 3 months before Trump’s attempt on Maduro, less than 30% of Republicans said they approved of using military force in Venezuela. Leading up to the operation, that number rose above 50% before spiking to 74% after it had happened.
Read More: Trump Adviser Calls for US to Claim ‘Victory’, Withdraw from Iran War
Tellingly, when asked whether he was worried if his intervention in Venezuela might upset his supposedly non interventionist base, Trump told NBC, quote, “Maga is me, MAGA loves everything I do, and I love everything I do, too.” and while that might sound a little self glorification , the polling suggests it might also be true. Nonetheless, even if the rank and file aren’t yet split, there does seem to be a pretty stark divide amongst what we might call MAGA elites over the war in Iran and a number of prominent MAGA figures and MAGA adjacent commentators have been conspicuously critical.
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, for instance, argued that “This is Israel’s war not the United States’ war”. Republican House Representative and former MAGA cheerleader Marjorie Taylor Green argued that the party was going in the wrong direction and had been hijacked.
Figures within the White House have also started not so subtly signaling their discomfort. Last week, Trump’s advisor, David Sax, went on a podcast and suggested Trump should declare victory and get out. Trump himself admitted that his vice president JD Vance, a renowned isolationist who’s been conspicuously quiet for the past two weeks, was maybe less enthusiastic at the start of the war than the rest of the administration. So there’s clearly a divide amongst MAGA elites over the war in Iran.
Whether this sentiment eventually trickles down to the rank and file remains to be seen and will probably depend on how long the war goes on for and how loyal the base actually is to Trump himself. But even if as Trump claims MAGA is Trump and the base continues to support his war, this could still be bad news for the GOP (Republican Party) because it will give Trump an incentive to continue with a war that’s not at all popular with the American public.
Polls suggest about 50% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s war in Iran, while only about 40% of Americans approve of it, including barely a majority of non-MAGA Republicans and less than 30% of independents. This makes it far less popular than other wars when they first started, and support will probably wane over time, leaving Trump stuck in a costly foreign excursion.
*The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Diplomatic Insight.
Muhammad Haseeb Sulehria
Muhammad Haseeb Sulehria is a researcher in Defense and Strategic Studies with a strong interest in international security, geopolitics, and strategic affairs. His work focuses on problem-solving and evidence-based research aimed at understanding contemporary security challenges and global conflicts.
