Trump's Jacksonian Supporters

A piece by Mike Watson at the Free Beacon does a nice job of identifying the thinking of a large segment of Trump's supporters. He writes:

Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency revealed Iran had hidden evidence of some tests related to building nuclear weapons and had enriched enough uranium to make nine nuclear bombs on short notice. Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei then rejected the most recent American proposal in the nuclear negotiations and denounced "the rude, insolent U.S. leaders."

Donald Trump fired back: "Time is running out on Iran's decision pertaining to nuclear weapons, which must be made quickly!"

The back-and-forth has perplexed and disoriented much of Washington. Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan recently said that Trump is "negotiating something that, in its broad elements, is going to look and feel pretty similar" to the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran. "I seem to be on the same page as Donald Trump," he continued.

The strain has been too much for many of the Israel haters who claim to speak for Trump’s political base and favor an Obama-esque approach to the Islamic Republic. They have run into a major force in American politics, one that Khamenei should fear: America’s Jacksonians.

Who are these Jacksonian Americans?

Walter Russell Mead, who first identified this group in Special Providence, describes their values as "a deeply embedded, widely spread populist and popular culture of honor, independence, courage, and military pride." A "Jacksonian hero dares to say what the people feel and defies the entrenched elites." Andrew Jackson was one such hero; another is Donald J. Trump.

Trump rocketed into the White House largely thanks to his intuitive understanding of the Jacksonians and their resulting bond. They nod along to his criticisms of democracy promotion and nation-building and are skeptical of long, drawn out wars. Since they prefer to ignore foreigners whom they do not consider a threat, they can appear quite dovish.

They are not at all dovish about terrorism though, or about major terrorism sponsors like Iran. Since Iranian revolutionaries attacked the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and took 52 Americans hostage for more than a year, Jacksonians have loathed the mullahs. Iran’s intervening decades of supporting worldwide terrorism—killing Americans and systematically cheating on agreements—have not engendered any new warm feelings.

Jacksonians do not want Iran to get the bomb, and the economic incentives that the Iranians are dangling do not change their minds.

How many Trump voters would be considered Jacksonians by this measure? According to a recent Rasmussen poll,

Three-quarters of Trump voters support strikes to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. Among those who strongly approve of Trump, the figure climbs to 84 percent. The anti-Israel crowd, and the doves who voted for Kamala Harris, are in the minority.

Crossing the Jacksonians can fatally weaken presidencies. Barack Obama and Joe Biden both hoped to smooth things over with Iran and gracefully exit from the Middle East. But the Obama-era chaos in Syria helped create ISIS, and Oct. 7 destroyed Biden’s Middle East policy. The subsequent outbreak of domestic terrorism by ISIS members in 2015 and pro-Hamas rallies in 2023 fired up the Jacksonians and helped propel Trump into office.

There's more to Watson's analysis at the link, but the Jacksonians may have a well-grounded concern. Trump has said the two ways to deal with Iran’s enrichment program are to "blow them up nicely or blow them up viciously."

But there's a fear that Trump will indeed settle for an Obama-esque "solution" in which there's no "blowing up" at all. Such a solution is no solution at all, and if that's what ultimately comes of all of this, there'll be a lot of Jacksonians whose support for Trump will erode. On the other hand, as Watson writes:

If the mullahs choose to have it done viciously, plenty of Americans will be happy to oblige.