Trump As An "America First" Pragmatist

An article by Daniel Jupp entitled "Tucker’s wrong, Trump is an America First pragmatist," attempts to aggravate the divide that appeared in the MAGA movement prior to the strikes on Iran by chastising those concerned about the potential results of U.S. involvement. Jupp makes some good points about Trump (whom I've always maintained would have been considered a moderate in the 1990s). Jupp points out:

    Trump has almost zero ideological content. Trump is not looking for the Perfect Ideological Fit. He has it already, and it’s called America. He’s all indomitable self-belief and very simple patriotism. It’s expressed almost entirely in the two main slogans of his life in politics. America First, and Make America Great Again. That’s it. He means both, and there is nothing else attached to either. He’s not a Zionist. He’s not an Anti Zionist. He’s not a Democrat. He’s not a Republican. He’s not a Free Trade Fetishist, and he’s not a Crazy Lunatic. He’s not a lover of Nato, and he’s not a servant of the UN. He’s not a Conspiracy Theorist, and he’s not an Establishment Stooge. He’s not Perfect, and he’s not a Monster.

    He’s a pragmatist in an age of mad ideas.

 And:

    Trump’s lack of ideology, his simplicity, his hard-headed, totally pragmatic, completely common-sense grounding in reality and innate character-deep, DNA-deep distrust of bullshit can be deceived by flattery and deception from people he has mistaken for allies, as it was by covid architects of evil. But generally it gives a much better guide than ANY ideological construct does.

    Trump is not an ideological purist. He’s a pragmatic common-sense patriot. In many ways, and ironically, it makes him more moderate than anyone else, both those who have always hated him, and those who switch between love and disillusionment. They are judging by ideals and emotion, whereas Trump functions by common sense and results.

Jupp also notes that Trump's opponents are, on the other hand, very ideological:

... Soros is not just a crook. He is a believer. An Open Society, Open Borders fanatic. Obama wasn’t just a crook. He was genuinely a Marxist (all Marxists have always been able to exclude their own property and wealth from the equation). Climate Change is not just a grift, it’s also a cult. Globalists aren’t just purchased national traitors, they believe the insane abstractions they force on others. Even Establishment conservatives who fetishise Nato, howl for more Ukraine intervention, or went wild with grief when Trump used tariffs, do so because the 1945 settlement, the rules based international order, the mantra of free trade, the Cold War thinking and the Russophobia, have all become respectable fixations, ideological identity props, and part of an Abstract Whole. 

But to chastise Tucker Carlson and, by extension, anyone else on the Right that was concerned about the consequences of the U.S. getting involved in another conflict involving yet another Muslim state? I think that many of those urging caution on the Right were, in fact, also being pragmatic. After all, those old enough to remember have seen Marines blown up trying to stabilize Lebanon after Israel's invasion in the 1980s, troops killed on Mogadishu, two regional wars against Iraq with the second followed by a lengthy occupation, an invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, and the destruction of Libya and Syria.

    We didn't keep Lebanon from becoming a failed state. We weren't able to restore order to Somalia. Libya and Syria became failed states after our interventions. Iraq is a severely weakened state and, ironically, less secular than before our invasion. Afghanistan reverted to rule by the Taliban, except now equipped with modern arms and equipment. And as far as I can tell, none of these interventions made the U.S. safer or more prosperous. If anything, the opposite. So, no, it was not "nuts" to have doubts about our getting involved in the conflict between Iran and Israel. 

    But at this point, it is still not clear whether the cease-fire between Iran and Israel will hold or if Iran will abandon its nuclear weapons program.