Can Reagan Republicans work with MAGA on foreign policy? No, obviously. | Opinion
House Speaker Mike Johnson thinks Reagan conservatives can mix with Trump's MAGA populists. He's wrong.
Among the flurry of news during President Donald Trump's first week back in the Oval Office, little attention was given to a rare but interesting interview with Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Speaker Johnson has a lot of unique insights into the direction of the Republican Party, which isn’t surprising given his position. Last week, he sat down for a frank hour-long discussion with journalist Bari Weiss, giving Americans a more down-to-earth view of the speaker outside his official capacity.
His attempts to reconcile his own stated Reaganism with Trumpism are valuable in the evolution of conservatism. However, Speaker Johnson is wrong about how compatible Trump’s ideology is with Ronald Reagan's version of the GOP.
Johnson is too simplistic in his view of the Republican Party
“What we’re doing right now is a new fusion,” Johnson said, likening the current schism in the GOP to the fusionism of our past.
For those less wonky than I am, fusionism commonly refers to the alliance between the more traditional social conservatives and the libertarian wing of the American right. Though this is a massive oversimplification, this alliance became the bedrock of the Republican Party throughout the second half of the 20th century, melding libertarian economics with conservative social policy.
The shortcomings of Republicans toward the tail end of this timeframe gave way to the rise of Trump and allowed his vein of conservatism to rise to prominence. While the Republican Party has always wrestled with some level of populist tendencies, even harnessing it to win elections at times, it wasn’t until the 2016 election that the populist wing of the GOP broke through and won a primary.
In essence, the GOP has entered uncharted waters with its new Trumped-up platform, and Reagan Republicans like Johnson are trying to reconcile that with their vision. It won't work.
Speaker Johnson is overly optimistic about how compatible the MAGA movement is with Reaganism. Trump’s form of populism − though it shares some commonalities with the old guard of the party − has some tenets that cannot be squared away.
MAGA foreign policy puts America at risk
Two key topics in which the MAGA movement comes into tension with classic conservatism are foreign policy and the economy. Today, I’d like to focus on the former.
The status quo of the GOP was always a hawkish foreign policy, enabled by the tenet of “peace through strength.” Speaker Johnson endorses that tenet but, during the podcast, brushed off dissenters within the party as simply wanting to “take care of our own house before we take care of the neighborhood.”
The perceived failures of our wars in the Middle East have led MAGA Republicans down the road of interventionism and mistrust of those who wish to interject America into international conflicts. The result has been those who want to stop funding foreign conflicts, such as those in Ukraine and Israel.
The MAGA base has thrived off of apathy toward aiding Ukraine and Israel. On the other hand, more traditional foreign policy minds see the value of helping others to fight our enemies on our behalf. Spending money in the short term can avoid a more significant conflict in the long term, one that America may need to involve itself in more directly. Representatives like Thomas Massie of Kentucky, for example, are spearheading the movement to oppose nearly all U.S. funding of these countries.
The truth is that some within the GOP genuinely do not see the value in U.S. interventionism, even when our own house is in order.
These differences are a fundamental disparity in how we see the world and America’s role, and I am skeptical that those positions can be reconciled. The GOP of old would support both Ukraine and Israel, as those willing to fight our enemies on our behalf are worthy of our support.
Having the “most powerful house in the neighborhood,” as Johnson put it, is just one part of achieving international peace. The other half of that calculus is that our enemies must believe we will use our strength should they push us too far.
If a large enough portion of the GOP is against U.S. interventionism, the Chinese are unlikely to see any threat against them taking Taiwan, and the Russians are unlikely to see any further resistance to their actions in Europe.
Trump may have different view of America’s role in 2nd term
While Trump’s strongman persona of threats against our enemies remains a valid effort, those threats only work so long as Russia and China believe our bluffs to an extent. Turmoil within the GOP caucus only opens opportunities for our enemies to take advantage of.
Though this is a small minority, they have risen through the ranks in the form of JD Vance, Trump’s second vice president.
Now, this portion of the GOP has yet to make up a majority, and foreign aid remains an issue that Democrats are willing to cooperate to overcome dissenting Republicans. However, the more the GOP morphs into accepting anti-interventionalist voices, the more skeptical I become of Trump’s ability to actually execute peace through strength.
Trump has already put a freeze on foreign aid for 90 days (though with exceptions for both Israel and Egypt). His administration is awaiting the confirmation hearing of leading anti-interventionalist voice Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence. His actions thus far paint a grim picture for those who support a hawkish foreign policy.
None of these actions square with the GOP foreign policy of old and should worry those hopeful of its return.
The GOP must restore credibility to our role in the world. That means following Trump's blueprint for foreign policy during his first term. Adopting too much from the anti-interventionist crowd will strain the GOP caucus and undermine America’s international strength.
Those who hope to reconcile the differences between Trump and Reagan are trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. These ideologies are not directly compatible, and those who claim they are are either disingenuous or overly optimistic.
Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for Paste BN and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.