In a recent article, Washington Post columnist and G.W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen argues that polling by the Reagan Institute exposes “The Myth of MAGA Isolationism.” The survey in question distinguishes between self-identified MAGA supporters and other Republicans, and the results fly in the face of conventional wisdom. “[O]n every metric measured,” summarizes Thiessen, “MAGA Republicans are more hawkish, and less isolationist, than their non-MAGA GOP brethren.” They are more supportive of proactive foreign policy in general, friendlier towards NATO, and more concerned about Taiwan, Ukraine, and Israel.
How can we explain this pattern? I think the simplest answer is that MAGA Republicans are more hawkish because they are more staunchly conservative, something which inextricably leads to a muscular foreign policy. Since conservatives view humans as inherently flawed creatures, they tend to see conflict as a natural feature of the international system, and therefore that strength and assertiveness are necessary to defend the national interest. This thinking is reflected by the Reagan Institute’s data, which show that more Democrats than Republicans think the United States is under “a moral obligation to stand up for human rights and democracy around the world,” even as more Republicans than Democrats consider American military strength “essential to maintaining peace and prosperity, both at home and abroad.”
As one would expect, Republicans have consistently enacted stronger foreign policy than Democrats. As Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) writes in Only the Strong,
There’s the conventional wisdom that Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson were “tough” Democrats and strong on the military. […] But on the core question of the defense budget, especially relative to the threats we faced and the commitments we made, these Democrats didn’t measure up.
Recently, however, there has been much talk of a supposed “isolationist” turn in the GOP. The exaggerated narrative of Republican isolationism is so popular in part because it’s a convenient excuse for Joe Biden and his party. Republican reluctance to fund Ukraine is understandable given the incompetence of the Biden Administration so far in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and how obstinately it has refused to secure the border with Mexico. But the story of Republican isolationism sweeps these failings under the rug. The narrative also focuses on Ukraine and tends to ignore Taiwan, Iran, Israel, and every other area in which Republicans continue to be the obviously more hawkish party.
In fairness, it’s not completely absurd to think that Republicans might want to retreat from the world stage. It is true, as Paul Gigot writes, that the GOP has a history of isolationism. This was especially true in the 1920s and 1930s. But history also shows the party came around. Thus, Gigot remarks that the attack on Pearl Harbor “discredited” isolationism and led the GOP to nominate Dwight D. Eisenhower for the presidency.
After the war, Arthur Vandenberg, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and his fellow Republicans were persuaded to support intervention in the Greek Civil War when it became clear to them that the conflict was part of a bigger picture. They came to see it as one of many points of confrontation with world communism, which sought global domination. That decision completed Vandenberg’s journey from interwar isolationism to a Cold War mindset.
More recently, Vandenberg’s evolution was repeated by House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Siobhan Hughes observes that Mike Johnson never once voted for aid to Ukraine before he became Speaker of the House of Representatives. Yet as speaker, he risked his position to hold a vote for funds to Ukraine alongside “aid to Israel and Taiwan” and “a TikTok crackdown.” What can explain this radical change of heart? According to Johnson, his status as speaker gave him access to special intelligence briefings which contributed to the shift in his thinking. The extra intelligence convinced him, among other things, that Russia would likely expand further into Europe if its advance were not halted in Ukraine. Hughes speculates that Johnson’s conversations with foreign leaders also played a part.
This is the same old pattern from 1941 and 1946. The late Charles Krauthammer noted that the Democratic Party was married to a pie-in-the-sky idealistic philosophy he called “liberal internationalism,” which maintained that American power should be used to promote democracy and freedom abroad without regard for the national interest. By contrast, Republicans have a healthy instinct for putting America’s national interests first. Because the connections between those interests and the state of the broader international system can be difficult to discern, this impulse sometimes leads to a right-wing isolationist stance. But when it becomes obvious that the international order which is crucial for American well-being is at stake, leaders like Vandenberg or Johnson are soon persuaded to steer their party away from complacency.
The American right is not isolationist. But it does want to employ U.S. power efficiently. That is what Donald Trump did, and what Joe Biden has failed to do.