An old idea has been making the rounds in discussions about the antiwar movement. In the face of the escalating Moscow-Kyiv confrontation, numerous organisations have asked why the political Left cannot join forces with the ultranationalist far right – at least with those ultraright politicians who have expressed antiwar sentiments.

Surely, the Trump-style MAGA Republicans – while holding obnoxious views – are to be commended when critiquing America’s predatory overseas wars? No, MAGA Republicans are not antiwar allies and Trump was never an antiwar president.

Sam Carliner, writing in Counterpunch magazine, correctly observes that when MAGA conservatives like Marjorie Taylor Greene criticise the Biden administration for escalating the NATO proxy war against Russia, they are doing so on the basis of anti-immigrant antipathy and isolationism.

The ultranationalist Right, when expressing opposition to predatory wars, does so not because foreigners are being used as cannon fodder such as in Ukraine. They do it because their xenophobic nationalism motivates them to denounce any kind of international outreach as inimical to U.S. interests.

The isolationist tendency in conservative American politics traces its lineage to the America First movement. Trump was certainly not the first to use that slogan. Based in racism, the claims of ‘America First’ devalue non-American lives and reject international cooperation and participation as unnecessary and an unacceptable waste of resources on foreign issues.

Yes, Tucker Carlson – the ultrarightist screaming shill – barked criticisms of the pro-war directions of the Obama and Biden administrations and attacked the covert U.S. support for rebel antigovernment organisations in Syria. But no, Carlson is definitely not an ally of the antiwar movement.

MAGA Right figures like Carlson advocate economic policies which favour big business, impoverish workers and promote racist sentiments which underscore rampant imperialism and militarism. While Carlson – who became a minor celebrity on the Fox News circuit – made moderate criticisms of the Obama administration’s pivot on Syria, he has been at one with the bipartisan consensus on the buildup for war with China.

The Democrat Party, in a cynical and calculated way, then exploited Carlson’s occasional deviations from pro-war orthodoxy by presenting him as a stooge for the Russians. This way of smearing any opponent of the war drive against Russia – and the current NATO proxy war supported by US imperialism – is a tried and tested tactic of the Democrats. It serves to undermine critical examinations of imperialist war policies by maligning any critic as a potentially treasonous suspect.

But when he had a national platform, Carlson cheered on the American invasion of Iraq, and once called Iraqis ‘semiliterate primitive monkeys.’ These sentiments have no place in an antiwar movement based on international solidarity.

Rage Against the War Machine

Indeed, the MAGA ultranationalists do not understand that recessionary pressures and increased military spending go hand in hand. It is crucial to remember the connection between harsh neoliberal austerity at home and escalating financial support for military intervention overseas.

This is because the vision motivating the libertarian ultranationalist Right is precisely the philosophy that underpins reckless imperialist wars overseas. Emphasising this point is required because there have been practical attempts to unite the Left (at least some particular groups on the broad Left), with the ultraliberatarian Right.

I am referring to a specific event in the United States – the Rage Against the War Machine rally in February this year. Purportedly uniting disparate political forces on a common antiwar platform, the rally in Washington DC turned out to be a bit of a freak show.

Organised jointly by the Libertarian party and the supposedly leftist People’s Party, the protest rally was better at marketing than actual attendance or political perspective. Uniting the far right and conspiracist groups of the ultranationalist Right – including the remnants of the Lyndon LaRouche far right cultist movement – the rally failed to live up to its promise of ‘raging’ against the US military financial complex.

The Libertarian party, advocating a hyper-deregulated laissez-faire capitalism, is committed to the philosophy of Austrian-American economist Ludwig von Mises. His Ayn Randian vision would see society stripped bare of any type of government regulation.

The Mises Caucus, the dominant group within the Libertarian party and co-organiser of the rally, is not only a hyper-capitalist in its orientation, but also neo-Confederate, basing themselves on a perverse and self-serving notion of individual liberty. It is not unusual to see Libertarian groups distinctly orient to far right militia and antisemitic forces.

While the media janissaries of the far right may posture as pro-worker advocates, in reality the policies of the MAGA Right have always been big business friendly. Tucker Carlson, throughout his stint as a media figure, consistently lined up with the policies of monopolies, proposing measures to make life harder for the working class.

Not once did he speak up for public health and Medicare or for environmental regulations to reduce pollution – he has been a populist for the 1 percent. The late English politician and racist, Enoch Powell, was cut from the same political cloth.

Surely the sign of maturity, both emotional and political, is to cooperate on momentously important and common issues with people and groups with whom we might otherwise disagree. That is true – not everyone can agree on everything one hundred percent of the time.

We must also have the maturity to recognise a dead end political strategy that has been tried multiple times before and failed. Broadening the scope and magnitude of the antiwar movement is urgently needed, but uniting with the MAGA Right is only allowing a poisonous weed space to grow.

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This is an edited version of an article first published 14 August 2023 as “The ultranationalist Right and MAGA Republicans are not antiwar allies” on the Antipodean Atheist blog.