‘Discordant’: How Trump’s attacks on the Houthis split his Republican base

There are no new divisions on the right between those who support a global system supported by US military power and those who view it as a US resource drain. For decades, that schism has persisted.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, the latter group, which frequently included ultra-nativist and racist figures, was marginalized even further.

Conservatives firmly support US interventions in nations like Iraq and Afghanistan, and the US responded by starting a global “war on terror” against those attacks.

However, as the public started to become more skeptical of US involvement abroad, those wars came to be seen as bloody and drawn-out failures.

Mills said that young people, particularly those who witnessed these disastrous wars, are not convinced of the benefits of the global US security structure or the ideology that causes foreign interventions, Mills said.

Trump has largely continued the US military’s practice of conducting routine operations abroad, coordinating drone strikes in the Middle East and Africa, and assassinating Iranian general Qassem Soleimani during his first term in office.

He has openly pondered using military force to seize control of the Panama Canal and Greenland during his second term.

However, according to experts, he also understood the political benefits of running for president as a critic of a discredited foreign policy establishment among voters.

For instance, Trump pledged to end the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East as soon as possible in his 2024 presidential campaign, where more than 49 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli occupation of Gaza, which experts believe is undercounting the number of bodies still buried beneath the rubble.

Many on the right, who see Trump’s actions as evidence of a transactional approach that prioritizes US interests, are pleased with his position on Ukraine.

For instance, the president has pressed Ukraine to pay the price for the US’s military assistance by granting them access to its mineral resources. He even suggested this week that the US would have control of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

Despite the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejecting a ceasefire that Trump himself boasted about achieving, Trump has been more hesitant to put in similar pressure on Israel.

According to Annelle Sheline, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an anti-interventionist think tank, “in general, I think we’ve seen the Trump administration making decisions that reflect a willingness to buck convention in ways that some people find alarming,” such as a move closer to Russian preferences to end the war in Ukraine.

“But I believe that Israel has its own gravity, and some of those same impulses won’t have an impact on Israeli policies. This administration seems to have turned their attention toward this situation in a similar way to Biden’s.

That contradiction raises further tensions within Trump’s coalition.

While the right has become accustomed to ambivalence and even outright animosity toward Ukraine, Matthew Petti, an assistant editor of Reason Magazine’s libertarian-leaning magazine, claimed that the conservative movement is being swayed by Israel, a long-time US ally.

He told Al Jazeera via text that “the newly developed aversion to foreign wars, particularly in the Middle East, has sat uncomfortably with the right-wing cultural affinity for Israel.

“The issue has recently become unanswerable because of how Israel serves as the primary justification for US entanglement in the area.”

He explained that while there is a larger generational debate over Israel and US foreign policy, the far right is particularly divided.

For instance, some people consider Israel to be a powerful example of muscular nationalism. In contrast, Trump’s embrace of Israel is opposed by figures like Nick Fuentes, who embraces an unwavering anti-Semitism.

It’s unknown how those contradictions will manifest in Trump’s movement.

The Republican Party continues to be largely in favor of robust US assistance to Israel despite declining public support for the Middle East nation in recent years, particularly among young voters.

And the internal disagreements over his attacks on the Houthis don’t seem to be much of a factor in Trump’s actions.

Source: Aljazeera