Monday marked 10 years since President Donald Trump began his takeover of the Republican Party, thrice winning its presidential nomination and winning two out of three general elections.
Down the escalator, up to the pinnacle of national politics.
A decade later, Trump is still testing his leadership of both the GOP and the populist political movement he spawned when he finally made good on 16 years’ worth of promises, or threats, depending on your perspective, to run for president.
Trump has been supportive, though at arms’ length, of Israel’s military strikes on Iran, begun days before another round of talks between his administration and Tehran were scheduled. And he has signaled a willingness to give relief to businesses disproportionately affected by the mass deportations he has ordered, including agriculture and the hospitality industry.
However the broader public feels about these apparent policy shifts, they divide Trump’s MAGA base. They felt they were voting for an immigration crackdown at home and against more foreign wars abroad.
Trump and many of his deputies believe they are still making good on those promises, as he pushes enforcement on immigration, over Democratic leaders’ increasingly intense objections, and diplomacy with Iran. The United States has not yet joined Israel’s military campaign, with officials signaling this will only happen if Iran strikes U.S. assets.
But it is enough to make longtime Trump allies concerned. “We’re not involved in it,” the president told reporters at the Group of Seven summit on Monday. “It’s possible we could get involved. But we are not, at this moment, involved.”
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has been close with Trump in the past, said Monday that “the promise of the last election” was, “Hey, let’s focus on my country, where I was born, where my family’s been for hundreds of years.” Steve Bannon, who served as chief White House strategist early in Trump’s first term and has remained an important MAGA influencer ever since, said in response to Carlson’s prediction of more direct U.S. involvement, “Well, we have to — we can’t — we have to stop that.”
By the time of the 2024 presidential election, Carlson and Bannon were in Trump’s good graces, and more hawkish voices from the first administration, such as Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, and John Bolton, had long been on the outs.
But Trump has never liked others defining his movement for him or claiming to lead it better than he does. That was part of what caused his rift with Bannon during his first term. “Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency,” Trump said in a statement in 2018. “When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating seventeen candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party.” Trump credited “the forgotten men and women of this country” for his 2016 win and added, “Steve doesn’t represent my base — he’s only in it for himself.”
The two eventually reconciled, but Trump expressed similar sentiments in his high-profile breakup with Elon Musk and has hinted that more of the same could be in store for critics of his handling of Iran.
“Well, 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,” Trump told the Atlantic in an article published Saturday. “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.”
Trump has argued that his vision, like President Ronald Reagan’s 40 years ago, is peace through strength.
Less attention has been paid to Trump’s promise that “Changes are coming!” to immigration enforcement to benefit farmers and hotels losing out on labor. “We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA,” he wrote on social media last week.
“You can’t restore integrity to the immigration system without inconvenience to those who profited from the prior lack of integrity, both the illegals *and* their employers,” Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies posted on X.
At the same time, there is no indication yet that the administration has backed off its deportation targets. Trump wrote Sunday on social media that “we must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside.”
Trump has proven more enduringly popular than other important MAGA figures, such as former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and has a strong emotional connection with his base.
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“President Trump has done more than any person in my lifetime to earn the trust of the movement he leads,” Vice President JD Vance posted earlier this month. “I’m proud to stand beside him.”
That was during the dust-up with Musk, who has since repented of some of his post-Department of Government Efficiency public attacks on Trump. The prevalence of Vance’s sentiment among Trump supporters may be tested again in the coming weeks, but it has held up for 10 tumultuous years already.