Revolt of Trump’s Base Against U.S. War on Iran Is Getting Serious
June 18—Even before President Donald Trump took to talking up possible U.S. involvement on the side of Israel in its war with Iran yesterday, the signs of fury in Trump’s base at the prospect were multiplying, potentially building into a revolt in the MAGA ranks.
On June 16, One America News Network (OAN), long a staunch bastion of Trump support, advertised clips from former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz’s show on their platform that night, with the all-caps message: “Matt Gaetz: ‘The Last Time America Listened to Netanyahu Based on False Claims of WMD’s, we Ended Up Pouring Cash and Blood All Over the Sands of Mesopotamia, and in the end, we only made Iran stronger!’” Continuing to quote Gaetz, but in lower case, OAN added: “The regime change war in Iraq cost our great nation treasure, credibility, and the blood of our bravest patriots. It resulted in broken limbs, broken families, and broken minds. It also resulted in a broken Iraq, which, ironically, has now become a vassal state of, wait for it … Iran!” Within 12 hours of its posting, the OAN clip had garnered 1.7 million views—and the numbers are still rising.
Gaetz was hard-nosed. He showed clips of Israel's Bibi Netanyahu and former President George W. Bush in 2002 pressing for the U.S. to take out the Iraqi regime because it had the WMD, juxtaposed to candidate Trump in a campaign debate fiercely denouncing the Iraq war as an utter disaster.
The warning to Trump from supporter Rich Baris, the man Newsweek dubs “Trump’s Most Favorable Pollster,” was more succinct: “Kiss the Republican majority goodbye… For the next decade. If he [Trump] pulls the trigger, it’s all over for MAGA.” Baris heads Big Data Poll, which Newsweek says had given Trump “the highest approval rating (+19) of any pollster in his second term so far.”
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (SC) and conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson have been two of the most vociferous from within Trump’s base, warning the President that if he takes the neocon bait for war with Iran, it will spell the end of his presidency. Greene has not backed down after President Trump dismissed Carlson as “kooky” for saying a war on Iran betrays “America First.” (America First is what I say it is, Trump had fulminated.) She countered on June16: “Tucker Carlson is one of my favorite people…. Since being fired by the neocon network Fox News, he has more popularity and viewers than ever before. He unapologetically believes the same things I do,...foreign wars/intervention/regime change put America last, kill innocent people, are making us broke, and will ultimately lead to our destruction. That’s not kooky. That’s what millions of Americans voted for. It’s what we believe is America First.”
Former Virginia State Senator and retired Colonel Richard H. Black echoed that sentiment, in his remark today in the Comments section of the New York Times, on the question of war: “I’m a strong supporter of the president, but I am exhausted by this endless string of wars. Each time, we are told we must attack and kill people to preserve the peace. But no one ever attacks us. Why must we travel 5,000 miles to attack and kill them and destroy their cities and homes? Why not just stop making war on everyone?”