For Carpenter and many other young conservatives, the Iran war has exposed a growing rift within the coalition that helped return Trump to the White House in 2024. A younger generation drawn to Trump’s promises to avoid foreign wars is now confronting a widening conflict with uncertain aims—and questioning what “America First” is meant to deliver.
“It’s going to be a long-term struggle if we continue to drag out this conflict, and we don’t know what the end goal is,” he said.
Carpenter, of Prescott, Ariz., and the co-founder of Off The Record USA, a media company that oversees young conservative content creators, opposes the Iran war, arguing that it evokes the legacy of post 9/11 conflicts, which cost more than 7,000 American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan lives, and trillions of dollars.
Similar sentiments are emerging among Gen Z Republicans across the country. James Cox, 20-year-old college student from American University in Washington D.C., and the Chief of Staff of D.C. College Republicans, estimated that about half of his peers would disagree with how Trump has handled the conflict .
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