THE ISOLATIONISM OF THE TRUMP/CARLSON RIGHT IS A MILE WIDE AND AN INCH DEEP

I've given up on trying to persuade any of you that Donald Trump is the favorite to win the 2024 presidential election, even though I truly believe he is. However, I hope some of you at least recognize that it's possible he'll win.

If he does, some horseshoe lefties will regard it as a hopeful sign for the cause of anti-interventionism. I'm thinking of people like Lee Harris and Luke Goldstein, who wrote this in a misbegotten American Prospect opinion piece that was full of praise for Tucker Carlson:

Carlson repeatedly invited on independent journalists and commentators critical of American military adventurism. Political commentator Jimmy Dore told Fox News viewers, “Your enemy is not China. Your enemy is not Russia. Your enemy is the military-industrial complex.”

Is that really what Trump and Carlson fans believe? We know that many of them don't think Russia is the enemy. However, they despise China, which they think is responsible for nearly all the evil in the world that isn't the fault of the Democratic Party. It doesn't appear as if they actually want to go to war with China, however. Or do they?

Take a look at this new Donald Trump campaign ad.

New Trump 2024 ad pic.twitter.com/7eWlDMhZa1

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) April 27, 2023

Yes, it attacks "the global elitists" who "send your kids to war." But it also stirs up anger at perceived foreign enemies. Eight seconds in, we see Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, China's Xi Jinping, a Mao poster, and people we're expected to read as jihadists. The narrator says:

Enemies and tyrants on opposite sides of the globe laugh at us.

At 1:16, we see a clip of Trump from his presidency; he's walking with a military escort. At 1:24, we see him saluting against a blue sky while military helicopters hover in formation overhead. A caption reads: DON'T MESS WITH US.

This is not Ron Paul-style isolationism. Trump's ad-makers know that the base doesn't want that.

We've been told that the Republican Party is Trumpist now, and isn't going back to the way it used to be. Part of that transformation, pundits tell us, is a rejection of military adventurism.

I think that's true to some extent -- but I also think that GOP voters were extremely pro-adventurism twenty years ago and are ready to embrace adventurism again, if it's sold by a president they like and if the enemy is someone they hate (or are carefully trained to hate).

I don't know if a reelected Trump would really get us into a war -- but if he does, his "isolationist" fan base will be 100% behind him. Maybe Tucker Carlson will be critical of the war on his podcast. It won't matter. Right-wing voters hate non-white foreigners too much to completely abandon militarism, just the way they did when the Bushes fought wars they unquestioningly supported. They want to believe Trump can give them "peace through strength" -- an America so intimidating that no one challenges us. But if that fails and there's war, they'll be there for it.