MILWAUKEE — Twenty years ago, Republicans reelected a war president whose second inaugural address cast the U.S. military as the apostle of worldwide democracy.
Today’s Republican Party is quite different. Former President Donald Trump, whose first term featured no new foreign wars, has tapped noninterventionist Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) as his running mate. The delegates here at the Republican National Convention are on board with this shift away from nation-building, humanitarian intervention, and democracy-spreading.
“We shouldn’t be the police,” Michael Thompson, chairman of the Lee County Republican Party, said at the convention. “We should be out there, providing the leadership the world needs. Unfortunately, we don’t have any leadership in Washington, D.C. right now.”
This was typical of Republican delegates and alternates: They oppose U.S. military intervention in foreign wars and believe that bad actors will be kept at bay by strength — which they define as military buildup and Trump in the White House.
This shift in GOP grassroots toward noninterventionism makes Vance, a vocal critic of U.S. intervention, a fitting choice for running mate.
Charlie O’Connor is a Republican ward leader in Philadelphia. “I’m against nation-building,” O’Connor said. “We tried that in Iraq. We tried that in Afghanistan. We failed.”
Back in the Bush Era, O’Connor admits, “I supported the war because I was misled.” Now, he said Monday, “I’m through with the whole Bush faction of the Republican Party. … I’m tired of the neocons.” Nevertheless, O’Connor grants, “Unfortunately, we have to maintain our role, somewhat as a world policeman.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) joins Vance in calling for some sort of settlement in Ukraine. “I love the people of Ukraine,” Johnson said outside the convention. “I don’t want to see them used as cannon fodder in a proxy war between the West and Russia. That’s what this has devolved into.”
“He’s not going to lose the war,” Johnson said of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “The only way this happens is in a settlement every day that goes by that gets worse and worse because more people die more Ukraine gets destroyed. So settle it.”
“We can’t defeat him,” Johnson added. “I mean, we could if you want to risk nuclear holocaust. I prefer not to do that.”
“Establishing democracy” is typically a mistake, Peter Lumaj, an alternate delegate from Connecticut, argued.
Many Republicans argued that Trump’s strength would deter aggression.
“The Trump foreign policy is we’re not going to have problems,” Randy Fine, a Republican state representative from Florida, said. “When President Trump was the president, we didn’t have crazy Muslims attacking Israel. We didn’t have Russia attacking Ukraine. President Trump’s foreign policy is prevent the problems from happening in the first place.
Fine’s solution is simple: Elect Trump. “I suspect the minute President Trump gets elected, it’ll sort of be like Reagan and Iran with the hostages. I think things will work themselves out,” and speaking of foreign enemies, Fine said, “They understand force.”
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Lumaj made the same argument: “When Trump became president, [Putin] didn’t do anything. He didn’t even make any efforts to take over any parts of Eastern Europe to reestablish the so-called great Russian Empire again. You didn’t have any problems in the Middle East after Trump went after ISIS — and within a couple of months destroyed them.”
Fine’s explanation: “The world was afraid of [Trump], and you want you want a president that the world is afraid of. The only thing afraid of Joe Biden is his diaper.”