Conservative journalist Christopher Caldwell, hitherto a strong supporter of Donald Trump, is so deeply disappointed with the president’s decision to launch a war against the Iranian regime that he concluded in the Spectator: “The attack on Iran is so wildly inconsistent with the wishes of his own base, so diametrically opposed to their reading of the national interest, that it is likely to mark the end of Trumpism as a project.”
We can debate whether “Trumpism” exists as a coherent philosophy in foreign and domestic policies. I would argue it’s more of a pugnacious attitude with a handful of immovable north stars (immigration enforcement, tariffs, disregard for multilateralism) and every other policy decision negotiable — up to and including the federal government taking an ownership stake and some degree of control over private companies. (Gotta stop those socialist Democrats, ya know!)
The president’s supporters contend that the Iran war is absolutely consistent with the wishes of his base, pointing to a recent NBC News survey featured by CNN’s chief data analyst Harry Enten, showing a 100 percent approval rating for Trump among self-identified MAGA Republicans. (The president spoke about the poll as if it were a gift to him from the network: “The CNN poll said that I’m at 100 percent, and they’ve never seen that before, which is an honor. I was impressed that CNN would do that.”)
Even if you want to quibble with the numbers in that NBC poll, if a significant chunk of the president’s usual supporters had a problem with military action against Iran, you would think some poll would detect it; so far, that hasn’t happened. The CBS News poll released this weekend found 92 percent of “MAGA Republicans” approve of military action against Iran.
Back in January, Trump boasted, “MAGA is me. MAGA loves everything I do, and I love everything I do, too.” Other than a few exceptions such as the release of the Justice Department’s Jeffrey Epstein files, that has been the case.
But there’s a catch. For most Americans, “Do you identify as MAGA?” and “Do you support the president?” are essentially the same question.
If you’re a Trump supporter who is upset or wary about the Iran war or the resulting impact on gas prices … maybe you’re not as inclined to identify as MAGA to a pollster lately.
When Trump came to power, some voters who always thought of themselves as Republicans found that their party changed dramatically. It became more protectionist and skeptical of free-market economics, more noninterventionist in foreign policy, less focused on traditional values and even libertine in social policies — all under the leadership of a bombastic and erratic casino owner who kept having temper tantrums on social media.
Some of these people stopped describing themselves as Republicans when pollsters called but still held fairly conservative views. Nevertheless, they landed in the “independent” bucket — where many of them remained throughout the Biden years.
Other than a burst of support at the start, independent voters were never that enthusiastic about Joe Biden’s presidency. After beginning with a job approval rating around 60 percent among independents in a Gallup poll, by September 2021 Biden was at 37 percent, and thereafter he rarely exceeded 40 percent. One reason that independents soured on Biden so quickly and irrevocably? A sizable chunk of them were former Republicans.
That’s why we shouldn’t expect to find many MAGA supporters expressing their opposition to Trump’s decisions on Iran or much else. When people in this demographic disagree strongly enough, eventually they just stop calling themselves MAGA.
There is no “Trumpism” without Trump, and thus it is difficult to buy into Caldwell’s argument that the president is betraying some clear preexisting set of values. To the extent “Trumpism” as a philosophy exists, a core tenet appears to be: “Always trust the guy in charge, because he knows what he is doing and is playing seven-level chess.”
Enten also noted that MAGA self-identification increased from 28 percent in November 2024 to 30 percent in the March NBC News poll. We should probably not read too much into that minute increase, because the NBC poll has a margin of error of 3.1 percent, and one year ago, the same pollster found 36 percent of registered voters identified as MAGA. Aligning with MAGA is probably closely correlated to how people feel about the state of the country and their approval of Trump — when they think he’s doing well, they identify as MAGA; when he isn’t, they don’t.
War is a risky business. More American casualties, sky-high gas prices and a higher cost of living could provoke previous Trump supporters to turn against the president, belatedly fulfilling Caldwell’s assessment that Trump’s decision to go to war defies the desires of his base. But that may be a long way off. After all, most MAGA supporters voted for the man three times — and would vote for him another three times if they could. Concluding he was wrong about the war might mean he was wrong about other things, too … and thus, they themselves were wrong to believe in his judgment so fervently.
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