Who Really Decides What “America First” Means?

The base and those top influencers who channel their interests (and at times add their own insight) arguably define MAGA, but Trump is the only one with the power to implement it at scale, and he now believes that he knows better than them.

Trump recently told The Atlantic that “considering that I’m the one that developed ‘America First,’ and considering that the term wasn’t used until I came along, I think I’m the one that decides that. For those people who say they want peace—you can’t have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon. So for all of those wonderful people who don’t want to do anything about Iran having a nuclear weapon—that’s not peace.” This was in response to vehement opposition within MAGA over a possible hot war with Iran.

His remarks preceded Tucker Carlson telling Steve Bannon, both of whom have enormous influence over MAGA, that such a war would “see the end of the American Empire” and Trump’s presidency. That prompted Trump to respond as follows on social media: “Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that, ‘IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!’” Quite clearly, MAGA is now divided over who exactly decides what “America First” means: Trump or top influencers who channel his base’s interests.

Trump’s most zealous supporters believe that every MAGA member should “trust the plan”, as QAnon infamously urged, and insist that their political hero knows better than they do due to his access to the world’s most classified information. By contrast, their critics – who also deeply respect Trump and are grateful that he’s back in the White House – believe that he was manipulated by anti-MAGA forces during his first term, thus explaining their worries about him possibly being manipulated yet again.

Regardless of whether or not the US gets involved in a possible hot war with Iran, which is what Netanyahu is very clearly lobbying for and might have expected given reports that Israel can’t destroy Iran’s nuclear program without American bunker-buster bombs, MAGA is now divided from within. Each faction believes that the other is disloyal to the movement in their own way by correspondingly doubting its figurehead and blindly going along with everything that he says.

While Trump formally leads MAGA, he only coined the movement’s name and popularized its platforms that far predated his first campaign, which is why the Tucker-Bannon camp of “dissidents” and “purists” have no qualms about challenging and even condemning him for deviating from these positions. At the same time, his most zealous supporters argue that current realities sometimes require “pragmatism”, “flexibility”, and even “compromises” on these same positions in pursuit of the “greater MAGA good”.

Trump is convinced (whether rightly per Israeli intelligence’s assessment or wrongly per US intelligence’s own) that Iran really is secretly trying to build nukes, which if true could greatly limit the US’ freedom of action in West Asia and thus – as he sees it – undermine his envisaged MAGA goals. The Tucker-Bannon camp disagrees and is concerned not only about the costs of a hot war with Iran, but also that this is what would undermine MAGA’s true (understood as domestic-centric) goals, not a possibly nuclear Iran.

The real divide within MAGA isn’t over Iran, but over who decides what “America First” means, with Iran being the catalyst for bringing this long-simmering debate to the forefront. The base and those top influencers who channel their interests (and at times add their own insight) arguably define MAGA, but Trump is the only one with the power to implement it at scale, and he now believes that he knows better than them. This zero-sum divide risks irreconcilably splitting the movement if one of them doesn’t relent.