I think that most Trump voters support isolationism symbolically. They want a leader who prioritizes them rather than perceived others, but they don’t actually have a strong opinion about specific foreign policies per se. Attacking Iran does challenge that symbolism, but in the absence of direct effects on their own lives, their trust in Trump’s established “America first” reputation will go a long way.
A lot of his base believe that the reason the US goes around the world plundering and killing is for the benefit of the people in those countries. It’s utterly delusional, White Man’s Burden bullshit but that’s what the media says and they’re gullible enough to believe it (as are some liberals tbh). The main thing they want is to stop carrying this imagined White Man’s Burden. They don’t give a single shit about what kind of harm is inflicted on foreigners, they just don’t want to feel like they’re paying to help foreigners (or anybody else).
All that adds up to, if Trump does terrorist strikes that kill schoolgirls and destabilize countries to the benefit of absolutely no one, they don’t care. At best, they might care a little about US troops who are killed because they don’t see them as subhumans (like they do foreigners), but even then it’s a toss-up because they might decide to want vengeance.
There is an “isolationist” current because they can see the failure of the occupation of Afghanistan but they also have incoherent worldviews and little ability to resist propaganda. So they blame that failure on “woke” and on it being nation-building, without realizing that the “woke” was just a pretence and also that Bush also claimed he didn’t want to get involved in nation-building because of Vietnam.
I think that most Trump voters support isolationism symbolically. They want a leader who prioritizes them rather than perceived others, but they don’t actually have a strong opinion about specific foreign policies per se. Attacking Iran does challenge that symbolism, but in the absence of direct effects on their own lives, their trust in Trump’s established “America first” reputation will go a long way.
A lot of his base believe that the reason the US goes around the world plundering and killing is for the benefit of the people in those countries. It’s utterly delusional, White Man’s Burden bullshit but that’s what the media says and they’re gullible enough to believe it (as are some liberals tbh). The main thing they want is to stop carrying this imagined White Man’s Burden. They don’t give a single shit about what kind of harm is inflicted on foreigners, they just don’t want to feel like they’re paying to help foreigners (or anybody else).
All that adds up to, if Trump does terrorist strikes that kill schoolgirls and destabilize countries to the benefit of absolutely no one, they don’t care. At best, they might care a little about US troops who are killed because they don’t see them as subhumans (like they do foreigners), but even then it’s a toss-up because they might decide to want vengeance.
There is an “isolationist” current because they can see the failure of the occupation of Afghanistan but they also have incoherent worldviews and little ability to resist propaganda. So they blame that failure on “woke” and on it being nation-building, without realizing that the “woke” was just a pretence and also that Bush also claimed he didn’t want to get involved in nation-building because of Vietnam.