Party elites so blind they can't see GOP rank & file turning against war

Last week, only four House Republicans voted with 210 Democrats to pass a war powers resolution to end the U.S. war with Iran.That means 208 House Republicans voted to continue the war. Hours later, the Republican-led Senate killed the measure, with only one GOP senator voting with the Democrats to end the war, de facto joining four other Republicans who were either absent or missed the vote.The overwhelming majority of congressional Republicans are still clearly committed to President Donald Trump’s war. Republican voters? Not so much.A new Politico poll, published just one day before these votes, revealed a growing gap between congressional Republicans’ continued unqualified support for the war and GOP voters' seeming increasing lack of it.As recently as May, “half of President Donald Trump’s MAGA base thought the Iran war was worth its economic costs” but now barely over a third do, the news outlet reported. On the specific statement, “The U.S. should continue, even if it increases costs in America,” the number in agreement plunged from 50% in May, to 37% in mid-July.“That precipitous, 13-point drop in just two months…reveals how the president’s most die-hard supporters are starting to agree with the majority of Americans who have long opposed the U.S.’ involvement in the war,” Politico noted.The war with Iran has been unpopular with Americans since it began in late February, a sentiment that has only grown with time. Increasing gas prices and other rising costs at home have been top factors in attitudes about the conflict.Republicans have been the factor in keeping those already bad numbers from diving further into the dumps. Until now. This Politico survey does not appear to be an outlier in measuring Republicans’ waning enthusiasm for the war.An Economist/YouGov poll released July 14 showed a majority of the GOP base still supported the Iran war, yet that support was slipping with both MAGA and non-MAGA Republicans. “While overall most Republicans say the war was the right decision (63% vs. 16%), the roughly 26% of Republicans who say they're non-MAGA Republicans are less likely to say the war was the right decision than the wrong decision (31% vs. 51%),” according to the summary released by YouGov.New York Magazine combined this Economist/YouGov poll with the Politico survey to surmise that 51% of self-identified MAGA supporters want the U.S. to “make a deal to end the war in Iran as quickly as possible.”A CBS News poll released in mid-June showed that a majority of both Republicans and Democrats want the war to end, including 60% of all Republicans and 56% of ‘MAGA’ Republicans.”Just as the recent Politico polling contrasted their latest results with their findings in May, on May 19th, Responsible Statecraft cited an Institute for Global Affairs (IGA) survey:Despite the strong GOP support for the overall prosecution of the war, the poll also shows evidence of potential cracks beginning to emerge as the Strait of Hormuz closure drives up prices. Almost half of Republican respondents (46%) say that it has been “somewhat or much harder” for them to afford necessities such as housing, food, or medical care over the last six months. Among Democrats and independents, that number is 78% and 61%, respectively.A large majority of Republicans say the war has worsened this trend. Twenty-four percent say it has affected cost of living “a great deal,” and another 46% say it has had at least some impact on prices.While the IGA poll cited was taken from April 24-27, the Strait of Hormuz — the main reason for the cost of living concern — is still shut today. These voter attitude shifts are not without context and voice in conservative media.Former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was once a top MAGA player who post-Congress has since become an aggressive anti-Trump figure, driven in no small part by her anti-war views. Last week when Trump threatened to kill more Iranians for every U.S. soldier killed, Greene posted on X, “Our American soldiers wouldn’t be getting killed if you weren’t fighting an unnecessary war against Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz that was already open before you went to war.”“End the war,” Greene demanded. “In your 1st term in 2019, gas was under $2 and inflation was 1.8%, DO THAT AGAIN!”Reflecting on the earlier ‘America First’ campaign promises of the Trump administration and what’s actually being delivered to GOP constituents, Cato Institute foreign policy analyst Jon Hoffman told RS in an email, “The growing rift on the right regarding the Iran war reflects the broader divide within the Republican party on what an America First foreign policy looks like in practice.” “Many establishment Republicans have tried to repackage decades of conventional thinking under the label of America First, failing to recognize the growing dissatisfaction with status quo policies among the base,” Hoffman added.Establishment Republicans, with a major assist from Trump, have attempted to redefine America First as the same, old, neoconservative D.C. establishment foreign policy consensus. These polls show a conservative base growing weary of it.In addition to the overall disenchantment on the right, data shows younger Republicans are opposing the war in significantly higher numbers than their elders.“The war in Iran — which is so blatantly antithetical to America First — has deepened this rift,” Hoffman noted. “It is a war solely on behalf of Washington elites and special interests. Younger Republicans in particular are tired of endless wars in the Middle East and feel betrayed by Trump's blatant disregard for his own campaign pledge of no new wars.”“Party leadership ignores this growing divide at its own peril,” he warned.A party reckoning could be coming for a number of reasons. But this war, and Republican voters’ attitudes about it, could top that list.