The MAGA Foreign Policy Trap

Politico had a long read on the political and foreign-policy ambitions of Senator J.D. Vance—the oligarchic, Ivy-League wealth-mover who is also a full-throated MAGA reactionary. The one-time author of Hillbilly Elegy embraces Trump, Trumpism, and election conspiracy theory while rejecting standards of governance that most of us associate with democracy.

The piece was, frankly, too credulous about Vance for my tastes. It tried to portray Vance as unique among his congressional peers when in fact his views are of a kind, consistent with how I’ve characterized far-right politics and foreign policy in recent years.

This stuff matters because if Trump wins in 2024, the “New Right,” anti-liberal, semi-fascist branch of the Republican Party that Vance represents will dominate right-wing politics in the Congress.

And the piece unearthed many insights (specifically six!) that deserve attention in their own right because they reveal something of a trap for the critically minded observer of America in the world.