On foreign policy, Trump’s fans give him benefit of doubt
When Trump strayed from the typical governing style of diplomacy, Cheevers saw him as doing “the most American thing a president can do.”
As for taking over Greenland, “the idea that we shouldn’t expand our borders is kind of ridiculous,” he said. “This is how we made the country.”
Trump’s foreign policy whirlwind of recent months has surprised many; That includes Republicans who wish he would spend more time solving their country’s problems. His takeover of Greenland and attacks on Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran and beyond have confused those who thought “America First” would mean less foreign intervention.
But for now, Trump’s supporters appear to largely be giving Trump the benefit of the doubt when it comes to foreign policy. When critics see the fuss, they see the “art of the deal.” While even some Republicans see the abandonment of the postwar rules and alliances that made America prosperous, Trump’s admirers sing the praises of a president who revives the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt. While Trump appears to contradict his campaign rhetoric opposing military adventures, the president’s “peace through strength” mantra still resonates.
Overall, Trump’s foreign policy may turn out to be a political liability, and polls show that independent voters are deeply skeptical about it. For now, Trump’s military moves have been swift and have not cost American lives; This means that public opinion could be further distorted if a future intervention were more painful. And Trump’s latest foreign policy decisions are being made against the backdrop of growing anger over his administration’s actions in Minnesota; It’s an anger that could drown out the successes he tries to point to abroad.
Still, the reactions from its base to foreign interventions were limited. Trump appeared to backtrack on his demand to seize Greenland last week, but the framework of the agreement he said he had reached with NATO over the island owned by Denmark remained unclear. “Trump’s base has a phobia, or an aversion or objection to endless wars,” says Douglas Wilson, an evangelical pastor in Moscow, Idaho, who has emerged as one of the most prominent defenders of the president’s ultraconservative Christian right. “But they have no objection to being flexible militarily.”
Polls show concerns about the economy and a widespread view that Trump is not focused on the right priorities. But they also show that Republicans largely agree with his aggressive foreign policy.
A Jan. 12 and 13 Marist poll found that most Republicans support the United States taking military action in Venezuela, Iran, Mexico, Cuba and even Greenland, at 57%. A Quinnipiac poll from Jan. 8 to 12 showed that only 23% of Republicans support using force to take Greenland, but 67% support attempts to buy it.
Even conservatives in Washington who advocate restraint on foreign policy have found something to like about Trump’s global hyperactivity over the past few weeks.
Curt Mills, chief executive of The American Conservative magazine, founded by 1990s right-wing presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan, called Trump’s attack on Venezuela “stupidity.” At a time when the administration is “trying to suppress protests in Minnesota right now,” he said in an interview, attacking Iran in support of protesters would seem jarring.
But he said finding a peaceful way to annex Greenland was “the most sympathetic thing the government has proposed to do on foreign policy in almost a century.”
“What a huge advantage for Europe to have the argument that this could dissolve NATO,” Mills said.
Interviews in Moscow, Idaho, last week showed that Trump’s supporters tend to trust the president’s foreign policy, even if they sometimes have trouble explaining it. Brandon Mitchell, the district’s representative in the Idaho House of Representatives, acknowledged Trump’s interest in Greenland, although “I don’t know where he is and why he is on this.”
“There’s a lot of things he did, and I questioned that, and then I thought, ‘But that worked,'” said Mitchell, a Republican who runs Jiffy Lube stores.
In the heart of Moscow (the second syllable is “coe,” not “cow”) America’s division is felt in every corner. Gay pride flags are displayed at businesses aligned with the city’s liberal community around the University of Idaho’s main campus. And then there are buildings associated with Wilson, one of America’s best-known Christian nationalists; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is also part of his sect.
Watched closely by security guards, rising political operative Nick Solheim, flown in from Washington, gave a speech at Wilson New Saint Andrews College urging students to join him in the fight against his “enemies.” He emphasized Trump’s campaign message of “ending endless wars” and attacked “Republican elites” like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina for colluding with “establishment hawks.”
Solheim, 28, said nothing about Trump’s own military interventions, instead praising his trade deals and mass deportations. In addition to co-founding a group called American Moment that aims to groom the next generation of Republican aides, Solheim has been considering buying Greenland since at least 2021.
Trump’s quest for Greenland has “moral” significance because “our nation is, in a sense, stagnating,” he said in an interview.
“We haven’t been to the moon since the ’70s or ’80s,” he said. “We didn’t discover new lands. We didn’t conquer anything.”
One of the young men in Solheim’s audience was Jacob Gartrell, 19, president of the University of Idaho chapter of Turning Point USA, the right-wing group founded by Charlie Kirk. Gartrell said he appreciated Trump’s attacks on “drug boats” near Venezuela because each bombing saved hundreds of lives and repeated the president’s claim about the attacks. (He said he was speaking only for himself, not his group.) But he had problems with other aspects of Trump’s foreign policy because he believed the United States already had too many foreigners.
“If we captured both Venezuela and Greenland,” he said, their residents “could get on a plane and come to America.”
Trump has not talked about annexing Venezuela but has promised to “rule” the country indefinitely. Still, Gartrell’s concern highlighted the conflicting impulses of Trump supporters who want their leader to turn inward and also show strength.
University of Idaho political science professor Florian Justwan said there were early signs in his own unpublished survey research of apparent foreign policy contradictions among Trump’s base: Trump’s core supporters appear more likely than other Republicans to say the United States should focus more on its own problems and favor military action in places like Greenland and Latin America.
Justwan said Trump’s populist approach to foreign policy, including sharing private texts from world leaders, still resonates with his base.
“This is about anti-elitism,” he said. “This is about doing the right thing for the in-group.”
Indeed, after the Turning Point USA meeting on campus Friday night, 22-year-old Ben Coons said it was “really great” that Trump had “made people respect us when we feed them and take care of them.” He said he visited Denmark last summer, where they “pampered America all day long.”
But there were also some inconveniences. Far-right Christian leader Wilson said seizing Greenland was a “good and noble goal” as long as it was done “peacefully”. Hitting Venezuela was “defensible” because “what you had was a drug cartel taking control of a government.” But airstrikes aimed at changing the government in Iran would not happen because “What good is American foreign policy in doing this with naked military force?”
He warned that the success of the Venezuela mission “invites the spirit of arrogance.”
“So far, Trump is living a charmed life in foreign policy,” Wilson said. “So take risks when necessary, but don’t resort to it first thing.”
Wilson said his flock makes up 10 percent of Moscow’s increasingly polarized population of about 25,000. At the town’s Unitarian Universalist church, the Rev. Elizabeth Stevens said she believes there is no longer a single Trump supporter in her congregation.
Stevens said parents of teenage children told him they were worried “we’re going to get into World War III and their kids are going to be drafted and put at risk.” He pointed out Trump’s renaming of the Department of Defense to the Department of War and the administration’s turn against US allies, international law and the United Nations.
“A lot of people make comparisons to going into World War II, and this time we’re on the wrong side,” Stevens said. “There’s a lot of fear.”
This article was first published in The New York Times.
