The Republican Party is not split over the Iran war — but that doesn’t mean it can simply ignore the crank fringe bewailing and assailing President Donald Trump’s actions.
Polls show that 85% of Republicans back the attacks, and doubts are even more rare among the MAGA wing.
That should shock no one: Since the start of his second term (at least), the prez has enjoyed very high levels of support and approval within his party, and Epic Fury doesn’t change that.
Opinion could well shift if the war turns into a disaster of some kind, or a quagmire “forever war,” of course.
But the few but loud voices on the right insisting that it’s already one are, simply, wrong.
That is: While Tucker Carlson has his loyal listeners, even many (perhaps most) of them don’t buy the conspiracy theories about Benjamin Netanyahu or “the neocons” pulling Trump’s strings.
Naturally: Our president’s hallmark quality is doing whatever he thinks is best whenever he thinks it best to do so — critics be damned.
But that implausibility is beside the point: These folks present a two-fold peril to the GOP’s normie caucus:
1) Non-Republicans might be fooled into thinking the cranks represent a serious force within the party, or even into seeing them as the face of the GOP.
2) They might just fake their way into becoming a real force, particularly in the post-Trump future.
Democrats and much of the media are eager to abet both causes, hence such disinformation ops as The New York Times’ pathetic recent efforts to make the odious Nick Fuentes into a torchbearer for the right.
And of course it doesn’t help when elected Republicans such as Rep. Thomas Massie and ex-Rep. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene play footsie with the cranks.
Republicans need to beware the fate of the Democratic Party: Its centrists stuck their collective head in the sand while their agenda was taken over by cadres of antisemites, race hustlers, open-border delusionists, “gender identity” cultists, “misinformation experts” and other kooks far out of the American mainstream.
There’s zero meaningful difference between the GOP’s crank caucus and the lawn-sign wing of the Democrats: Both extremes repel the vast majority of Americans.
So regular Republicans and mainstream MAGAites alike must face down the freakshow — and show up in this year’s primaries and in November to showcase the strength of the GOP’s sane center.
