U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio represent different worldviews within the Make America Great Again (MAGA) universe, though both present their politics in terms of Christian civilisational nationalism. A fundamental principle of MAGA politics has been an opposition to America’s “endless wars” — the phrase Mr. Trump deployed in three consecutive election campaigns.
In his 2025 inaugural address, he declared that the power of the U.S. “will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent and totally unpredictable”. Mr. Trump touted not starting a new war as a big achievement of his first term. Mr. Vance is a MAGA native on the war question, while Mr. Rubio was a late, reluctant convert. The new American war in West Asia marks an eclipse of Mr. Vance and the prominence of Mr. Rubio. The MAGA base lay scattered and orphaned as their messiah, Mr. Trump, has himself abandoned the flock and joined the pipers of war.
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Two visions
The distinction between the visions of Mr. Vance and Mr. Rubio is most legible in their Munich Security Conference speeches, separated by one year. In February 2025, Mr. Vance chided European leaders for abandoning and turning against their own people. Mr. Vance has always focused on repairing the internal strife within Christian societies and reclaiming them from godless globalist liberals. He did not hesitate to invoke faith as the ground of his argument, citing the prosecution of a Christian activist in Sweden and “a humble Christian praying in her own home” in Britain as emblems of self-betrayal.
