George W. Trump Goes to War

The best essay for understanding right-wing support for Donald Trump’s war against Iran was published in National Review in 2023, at the 20th anniversary of the Iraq invasion. Written by Tanner Greer, a conservative writer and China analyst, it argued that the official populist repudiation of George W. Bush and neoconservatism masked a deep continuity between the Iraq-era conservative mainstream and the Trump-era new right.

Both the Bush-era hawks and the Trumpian right, Greer suggested, were profoundly concerned with civilizational decadence and how it might be escaped. Both yearned for national purpose, both displayed a “vitalist drive,” both looked for ways to break out of the limited horizons imposed by liberal convention wisdom and post-Cold War consensus. Neoconservatives then cared more about democracy and human rights, officially, than most Trump supporters now, but the Iraq hawks cared most profoundly about power in a way that’s entirely relevant today: The famous........

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