One of the most significant policy shifts over the last 5-10 years of conservatism has more than likely been the embrace of the anti-interventionist mindset.
Republicans in the House and Senate, such as Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Paul Gosar and others have aggressively stood against the promotion of endless war in the halls of Congress. This includes advocating for the withdrawal of troops overseas and in Middle East countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as voting to repeal the 2002 Authorization of Use of Military Force.
This did not just start within the last 3 or 4 years.
Starting in 2012, during former Congressman Ron Paul’s presidential campaign, he talked on and on about the dangers of an interventionist foreign policy abroad fiscally, morally and pragmatically. Paul argued that the United States should not act as the world police or burn taxpayer money feeding the military-industrial complex for the sake of establishing an international stranglehold on reputation abroad.
Most Republicans at that time looked at the position as heresy, seeing as the GOP continuously defended former President George W. Bush’s Iraq War efforts for nearly a decade.
However, the tide indeed turned when former President Donald Trump started to advocate for similar positions on the Iraq War and endless war in general during the 2016 Republican presidential primary debates. Trump aimed at the brother of former President Bush, Jeb, and took stake as the anti-interventionist foreign policy advocate of the entire slate of Republican candidates.
After Trump won the primary and eventually the presidency over known warmonger Hillary Clinton, he continued to advocate for anti-war policy while in office and found many allies along the way.
Starting in 2018, more and more congressmembers began to hold similar positions to Trump’s. Senators like Mike Lee and Rand Paul and congressional members like Matt Gaetz, Thomas Massie, and Paul Gosar could now be far more comfortable and accepted in both respective GOP conferences in their anti-interventionism.
This, of course, led to the elections of 2020 and the continuance of anti-war Republicans, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, to become new stars within the party.
Both the media and establishments of the Democratic and Republican parties are relentlessly attempting to destroy these Republican figures. Both sides of the political aisle far more prefer their voices to be neoconservative, neoliberal and polished instead of libertarian, populist and abrasive toward war.
War is a racket, and it is a racket for the establishment to bow down to the military-industrial complex that knows no party. The media loves to fearmonger the American public to garner back a bit of trust and work for those who profit from war.
The GOP has taken a turn in a significant way. The American public never wanted to be in an endless war in the first place, and it should continue to advocate for an anti-interventionist solution to keep America at the top of the international food chain.
Kenny Cody is a conservative writer and activist from Northeast Tennessee. Read Kenny Cody's Reports — More Here.
© 2023 Newsmax. All rights reserved.