GOP leaders and voters are increasingly skeptical of an extended commitment, part of a broader shift away from conservative support for foreign interventions
month, failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake pushed a very different message to the party’s activists.
More than a year after Russia invaded, the war in Ukraine has reached a bloody stalemate, with troops on both sides fighting over mere yards of territory along ain the country’s south and east. The United States and western partners have donated tens of billions of dollars in ammunition and weapons systems, hoping to break the deadlock on the battlefield.
After the war, the threat of the Soviet Union and international communism served to unite Republicans behind a more aggressive foreign policy, temporarily papering over ideological differences over America’s role in the world, according to Nicole Hemmer, a historian at Vanderbilt University.“As soon as the Cold War comes to an end, that kind of nationalistic, noninterventionist strain of the conservative movement comes roaring back,” Hemmer said.
But by the time Bush left office, the costly and drawn-out conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan became a drain on his approval rating, including among Republicans. A resurgence of antiwar sentiment fueled Rep. Ron Paul’s long-shot, but attention-grabbing, presidential bid in 2008 and the tea party wave of 2010. In 2014,
The breakthrough moment for this new era of Republican attitudes toward foreign policy came in the February 2016 debate ahead of the South Carolina Republican presidential primary. Despite having said he supported invading Iraq at the time, Trump now called the Iraq War “a big fat mistake” and criticized the Bush administration for lying about Saddam Hussein’s having weapons of mass destruction.
Ukraine and Russia played an outsize role in Trump’s presidency, from the investigation into Putin’s interference in the 2016to Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into investigating Biden, leading to Trump’s first impeachment. Both scandals primed Trump’s most devoted supporters to distrust Ukraine as corrupt and unreliable, while aligning with Trump’s apparent affinities for Putin, who he avoided criticizing and frequently praised.
Reagan’s think tank, has come out against approving additional aid to Ukraine and even started advocating cuts to defense spending — positions that Heritage Trump and his allies have begun attacking 2024 rivals for more hawkish positions. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who served under Trump, was heckled and booed at CPAC earlier this month by Trump supporters. Former vice president Mike Pence, another supporter of the Ukraine effort, is also a frequent target of their scorn.
“The average grass-roots Republican is a lot more noninterventionist than the average Republican senator,” said Andy Surabian, a Republican strategist and adviser to Ukraine-skeptical Republicans including Donald Trump Jr. and Sen. J.D. Vance . “There’s a giant disconnect between our party’s voters and our party’s elected leaders on that issue.”
“What went underestimated for a long time is there are different political inclinations at play than saying ‘peace through strength’ zombie Reaganism,” said Reid Smith, vice president for foreign policy at the Koch-backed group Stand Together. “That was a knee-jerk political instinct for a lot of Republicans and still holds for some leadership factions within the House and Senate.
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