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Will the Iran War Destroy MAGA?

Trump’s coalition is splintering over nationalism and Israel.

Since Japan’s surrender in 1945, no major US war has maintained lasting popular support. The typical pattern—seen in conflicts such as Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf War, Iraq, and Afghanistan—is for presidents to initially enjoy a substantial patriotic surge at the start of a war, which gradually dissipates as the cost in blood and treasure mounts.

Not so with Donald Trump’s current war on Iran. This time, voters have skipped the usual period of rally-round-the-flag enthusiasm and gone straight to the part where they wonder why the United States has plunged into yet another overseas quagmire. A poll conducted by Yahoo and YouGov earlier this week shows that 55 percent of the public disapprove of the war, including 90 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of independents.

Among Republicans, disapproval is lower, only 17 percent. But the partisan polarization shown by this and other polls is bad news for Trump, since it suggests that even the minority support for the war is simply a matter of brand loyalty.

And Trump’s coalition includes not just Republicans but also many independent voters. Among those who voted for Trump in 2024, nearly a quarter (24 percent) disapprove of the war.

Beyond the polling, the war is already causing a massive split in the MAGA movement. Many of the most passionate MAGA figures made the mistake of believing Trump’s claims to want to tear the system down and avoid regime-change wars. This cohort of disillusioned Trumpists includes the neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes and the bigoted crank Candace Owens, as well as avatars of the hard right such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and Joe Kent (who resigned as director of the US National Counterterrorism Center on Tuesday, citing his opposition to the war).

Conversely and equally ironically, many of those who are now the staunchest pro-war voices were once “Never Trump” skeptics precisely because they thought Trump would never fulfill their dreams of bombing countries like Iran. This group of hawkish Trump fans includes Senators Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, as well as media personalities such as Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin.

The debate between the hawks and nationalists has often been marked more by vitriol than intelligence. For instance, Megyn Kelly complained that the war had been sold by Trump-supporting “Israel firsters like Mark Levin.” This led Levin to respond, with more than a whiff of misogyny, that Kelly was “an emotionally unhinged, lewd, and petulant wreck” and “utterly toxic.” Kelly fired back in kind by nicknaming Levin “Micropenis Mark.” She added that Levin

thinks he has the monopoly on lewd. He tweets about me obsessively in the crudest, nastiest terms possible. Literally more than some stalkers I’ve had arrested. He doesn’t like it when women like me fight back. [Because] of his micropenis.

thinks he has the monopoly on lewd. He tweets about me obsessively in the crudest, nastiest terms possible. Literally more than some stalkers I’ve had arrested. He doesn’t like it when women like me fight back. [Because] of his micropenis.

Trump, never one to keep himself out of a petty feud, tried to settle the dispute with a Truth Social post defending both Levin........

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