The idea that Trump or MAGA is in any sense “anti-war” is something between an absurdity and a misunderstanding. Kate and I had a good discussion of it in this week’s podcast. At one level it’s a simple fraud. Trump claimed he’d ‘always been against the Iraq War’ at a time when the US had been bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan for years. It was a helpful attack line and it was completely false. Trump wasn’t in politics in 2002 or 2003 and to the extent he said anything, like a lot of people, he was for it when it was popular and against it when it wasn’t.
During his presidency he signed off on the assassination/targeted attack that killed Qasem Soleimani; he heavily involved the US in the Saudi war in Yemen; he maintained or expanded the US fight against ISIS in Iraq/Syria. Those are at least a continuity with the Obama years and in key respects an expansion of it. The one arguable exception is the deal Trump made with the Taliban to leave Afghanistan – a bad deal which Joe Biden was saddled with and followed through on and was endlessly criticized for, by Trump more than anyone else. Afghanistan captures Trump perfectly – his one notionally ‘anti-war’ position was continuity by definition. And he turned against it as soon as he was unpopular. Trump has gotten ‘anti-war’ mileage out of his opposition to Ukraine aid. But that’s pro-Russia rather than anti-war.