The war that defeated ‘America First’

U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance has supplied the most politically damaging explanation of the Republican mid-term debacle: “The reason we lost is the war.” His assessment deserves attention because it identifies a contradiction at the heart of Donald Trump’s presidency. An administration elected in large part on promises to avoid costly foreign entanglements made the U.S. a participant in another West Asian war without evidence that it advanced American interests. Republicans have now paid a huge electoral price for that reversal. 

Mr. Vance’s explanation goes beyond the familiar claim that disappointed supporters stayed home. He argues that former Trump voters crossed over to the Democrats. He identified four demands among these defectors: ending the war, addressing living costs, putting American interests first, and changing Washington’s relationship with Israel. The political significance of his diagnosis is unmistakable. The administration’s own second-in-command has connected Republican losses to the collision between its nationalist promises and its foreign policy.