Max Boot on Political Identity, Polarization, and Historical Memory

Max Boot has spent decades writing about American power, military history, and foreign policy—often from within conservative institutions, and later from a position increasingly independent of party identity. A senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a prolific historian and columnist, Boot has also been unusually candid about how his own political views have changed, and what those changes have cost him personally and professionally.
In this Pathway Blog conversation, Boot reflects on the rupture of 2016, his mentorship and admiration for Senator John McCain, the pressures of ideological conformity, and why polarization has made centrism feel like a lonely position. He also offers clear-eyed advice to young writers about credibility, intellectual independence, and the importance of historical literacy.

This transcription has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Reconsidering Political Identity
Ben Wolf: You’ve written candidly about how your political views have shifted over time—sometimes in ways that may have cost you allies. Looking back, was there a moment when you realized this wasn’t just refining a position, but fundamentally rethinking your core assumptions?

Max Boot: That really happened for me on election day in 2016 and the days immediately afterward. I had been on the right for most of my adult life. I worked at the Wall Street Journal editorial page and wrote for Commentary. I thought of myself as a conservative and a Republican, and I never imagined the Republican Party could be hijacked by someone like Donald Trump.
Trump was not conservative in any meaningful sense—he was a populist, nationalist rabble-rouser who began his campaign by insulting one of my great heroes, John McCain, saying he didn’t like people who were captured. That came from someone who had dodged Vietnam service, denigrating one of America’s greatest war heroes. To me, that alone was disqualifying.
I assumed the Republican Party would never fall in behind him, and yet it did. That triggered a personal and political crisis. I had to reassess a lot of what I believed and ask how the Republican Party and the conservative movement had fallen prey to someone like this. If this was what the GOP stood for, I didn’t want any part of it.
Many of my views haven’t changed dramatically, but I no longer identify with the Republican Party. I’m an independent now, and like many others, I feel politically homeless in Donald Trump’s America.

John McCain and a Different Model of Leadership
BW: You mentioned your disdain for Trump because of his criticism of John McCain--as I understand it, you served as McCain’s foreign policy adviser during his 2008 campaign. How did you come to work with him and what was that experience like for you?

Max Boot: Well, I’m actually also now in the process of writing a biography of John McCain. So McCain was large in my life. But I was introduced to McCain because of a book that I wrote more than 20 years ago called The Savage Wars of Peace, about America’s small wars. And one of those small wars was Pancho Villa’s invasion of New Mexico in 1916—and unbeknownst to me, one of the U.S. Army officers who was fighting off Pancho Villa’s forces was an ancestor of John McCain’s—and so he was an inveterate reader. He read that book, he liked it, and so he wanted to meet me. And I did meet him.
So I got to know him some and became a tremendous admirer—somebody who, I think, really personified America and the Republican Party at its best; somebody who was a man of honor and courage, and fought for his ideals. And, of course, that’s not to say that he was infallible. He made mistakes all the time. I mean, he made a big one in 2008 by choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate. But he had a capacity to learn from his mistakes, and he always had a devotion to serving a cause greater than himself. He always wanted to serve the country, and he wanted to serve the cause of liberty.
And those are all things that I greatly admired about John McCain. And unfortunately, none of those words describe Donald Trump—where his life seems to be basically in service to himself, his ego, and his bank account. And I’m mortified and mystified that so many Americans think that that’s who they want as their leader, but clearly that’s the case. And so that’s kind of, in a nutshell, how I became a man without a party.
And by the way, I would add: I don’t expect any sympathy for being without a party. I think it’s actually a pretty good position to be in, because one of the things I found over the course of my life is that when you are identifying as part of a political movement—whether it’s on the left, or the right; whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, or a democratic socialist, or a libertarian, whatever the heck it may be—there’s a tendency toward groupthink, and there’s a tendency to prioritize your standing within your social circle and your peer group over rigorous analysis of policy and willingness to take stances based on the issues, not what’s expected of you.
Whenever you’re part of any political movement, there is always this pressure to conform. And there is always punishment for people who break ranks. And so, over the years, it wasn’t like I said things that I didn’t believe in—I always said what I believed in—but there are issues I didn’t go into. I mean, I didn’t write about the fact that the Republican Party’s opposition to gun control, for example, I think is a myopic and suicidal policy, which is responsible for a lot of needless death and suffering—because good Republicans don’t criticize the stances of the party, and that’s part of this feeling of group loyalty.
So I kind of like now being a free agent and able to make my own way in the political world. The sad part of that has been that I have lost a bunch of friends—folks that I was close to on the right. Some of those friends I kept, because some have become Never Trump conservatives or have made kind of the same journey as I have. But others have gone over to the MAGA side of things, and it’s very hard for me to interact with them, and vice versa. That’s just a huge divide in our political life. So losing some friends has made me sad. I’ve gained some other friends, but it’s been a major transition for me personally—and I think for the country.

Groupthink, polarization, and party alignment
BW: You mentioned the tendency for there to be groupthink within political parties. I think that’s a pretty indisputable claim. But I think another trend we’re also seeing is group polarization—where people, because of the conformity pressures you mentioned within a political party, tend to move to more extreme positions because of the lack of opposition. We’ve seen that with the rise of right-wing extremist Nick Fuentes and criticized statements from figures like Tucker Carlson.
From your perspective---you mentioned that currently you don’t belong to a party--do you see yourself having a party alignment in the future? Or do you see this extremist trend, becoming more and more problematic on both sides of the aisle, continue to grow.

MB: I don’t. I mean, I’m certainly comfortable with the views of some centrist Democrats—just as I’m comfortable with the views of some centrist Republicans—but there are extremes in both parties. For example, I’m comfortable with the views of Josh Shapiro. I am not so comfortable with the views of Zohran Mamdani. And in the Republican Party, I’m comfortable with the views of—well, vanishingly few people these days. I guess maybe Mitch McConnell, or something like that. Certainly not comfortable with the views of Donald Trump or his acolytes in Congress.
But again: I’m not a political operative. If I were a political operative, I probably would have to choose a side, because we live in this two-party system where you’re either a D or an R; otherwise you have no impact, no influence, and no employment. But luckily, I’m not a political operative. I’m just an egghead and an ink-stained wretch. I just write for a living and offer my opinion, so I don’t feel compelled to sign up with either party, and I’m happy to call them both out when I think they’re wrong.
But I don’t want to engage in false moral equivalence here, because the reality is: while both the Democrats and the Republicans have extremist wings, the extremist wing is in control of the Republican Party, whereas it’s not in control of the Democratic Party. And the Democrats have nominated folks like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden—who I’m pretty comfortable with on the issues. If three years from now they nominate AOC or Bernie Sanders—that would be a serious problem for me—but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think Democrats have managed to stay much more in the center than Republicans have done.

Zohran Mamdani, New York City, and Political Branding
BW: You mentioned Zohran Mamdani. It’s interesting--Bret Stephens, in a New York Times column he made prior to the New York mayoral election, said that if Mamdani were to be elected and things were to go wrong, it would end up being better for Republicans, because Trump would be able to say, “This is the Democratic Party now—Zohran Mamdani.” What do you make of that?

MB: I know Bret well. We worked together many years ago at The Wall Street Journal. That’s a concern I have for sure. In theory, Mamdani seems like a very convenient piñata for President Trump. Whether that’s actually going to work out that way or not—very hard to say, because the one time when Mamdani was out at the Oval Office, Trump seemed to love him. They hit it off—which I don’t think a lot of people expected.
We’ll just have to see what happens with New York, which is where I live—where I’m speaking to you from right now. There were a lot of billionaires warning that they were going to flee town as soon as Mamdani was elected, and as far as I can tell, that’s not happening. New York is as popular a destination as ever, so we’ll see.
One of Mamdani’s saving graces is that it’s not clear to me how much power the mayor of New York actually has. In many ways, his power is circumscribed by the state—the state legislature, the governor, the MTA, other boards and commissions. And so a lot of his more far-out ideas are probably not terribly practical.
So we’ll see. When the British Empire suffered a major defeat at Saratoga during the American Revolution, a friend is said to have rushed in to Adam Smith—the great economist—and told him that the empire is ruined. Smith is said to have replied that there is a great deal of ruin in an empire. And I would say there’s also a great deal of ruin in New York City. We’ve had some pretty poor mayors like de Blasio or Eric Adams, and the city still seems to be thriving. So I’m guessing and hoping we will survive the Mamdani administration.
And while it’s true that Republicans will try to associate the entire Democratic Party with Mamdani, that’s not going to be convincing—assuming that Democrats nominate a much more centrist presidential candidate for 2028, because that person is going to become automatically the leader of the party.

New York, Jewish Politics, and The Widening Divide
BW: If I can ask a more personal question: you’re in New York, and I return often since much of my family is there. I recently heard Rabbi Cosgrove of the Park Avenue Synagogue speak sharply about Zohran Mamdani and the broader Israel/anti-Zionism debate—an example of how openly political even religious spaces have become. In your view, what else is driving the level of polarization in New York right now, and how durable do you think it is?
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MB: I think it’s a phenomenon larger than New York City, because there is no question there has been an increase in partisan polarization over the last several decades—and you can measure it in multiple ways, including data showing that Democrats in Congress are getting more liberal, and Republicans are getting more conservative.
There used to be a large number of liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats, and there’s almost neither—both of those groups have become largely extinct. If I had to identify with one group on the political spectrum, it would probably be kind of liberal, Rockefeller-type Republicans—maybe Teddy Roosevelt-type Republicans—but they really don’t exist anymore. That’s not a faction of the party you can belong to.
So there has been a tendency for both parties to become much more uniform and much farther apart on the issues. And you also see that to some extent in demographic polarization—where places like California and New York become much more blue, and Texas and Florida become much more red, and much more uniformly so.
And, of course, that trend is going to be accelerated because the Trump Republicans started this troubling trend of trying to do reapportionment in the middle of a decade to deprive Democrats of seats in Texas and other states. And now Democrats have been forced to respond in blue states like California. So I think that’s just going to drive the polarization.
It has a very negative impact in Congress because, for most members of the House, they’re all in safe seats. They’re not in competitive seats, so they feel no pressure to move to the center. In fact, all the pressure is the other way, because the only way House incumbents are likely to lose an election these days is if they lose the primary.
That’s been one of the chief disciplinary mechanisms that Trump has used to keep the Republican Party in line, because he’s always threatening to back primary challengers to Republicans who resist him in any way, shape, or form. And he’s managed to drive pretty much all of the anti-Trump Republicans out of Congress—Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, and all these others. There’s Mitt Romney. It’s just not a tenable place in Congress for somebody who opposes Trump anymore.
So, yeah—I think these are all troubling trends. I think of myself as a raging centrist, and being a centrist feels increasingly isolated on today’s political spectrum in America.

Writing for a Polarized Public
BW: I want to turn the conversation  to your own writing style and career path. Knowing that you write for a broad public at a time when foreign policy debates are deeply polarized, how should historians and writers communicate complex or uncomfortable arguments without flattening them into slogans—or polarizing the other side from even looking at their arguments?

MB: That’s kind of the essence of journalism—always has been, always will be: trying to simplify and explain a very complex issue without dumbing it down or succumbing to caricatures. That’s the essence of what journalists try to do—to grapple with complexity, but not lose your way within that complexity.
And that’s the talent that journalists bring to the table, because we’re usually not the world’s greatest experts in X, Y, or Z. But we’re people who can translate what the world’s greatest experts say, and explain it in a way that your average interested lay reader can understand.

Building Credibility Early
BW: For students who want to write seriously about history and foreign policy, but perhaps don’t yet have institutional backing—or are finding it hard to get involved in the space—how should they think about building credibility early on?

MB: Gosh, that’s a good question. I’ve never been asked that before. I think it’s just a question of doing the work.
It begins with reading a lot—not looking at websites, but reading actual books with covers and all the stuff in between the covers. Increasing your knowledge base. And obviously part of that is going to college; these days, it’s probably going to graduate or professional school. But fundamentally, it’s having curiosity about the world, wanting to learn, and actually doing the hard work of learning—not trying to take shortcuts with AI or CliffsNotes, but actually digging deep into issues that you’re interested in.
And then not being afraid to start at the ground level. I mean, I know coming out of college, nobody was going to pay me to be a foreign policy pundit—that would be a little presumptuous. I was starting off as an assistant national editor at The Christian Science Monitor, then as an op-ed editor at The Wall Street Journal, gradually working my way up to op-ed editor of The Wall Street Journal at the same time—pursuing my writing on the side and writing, for example, this book, The Savage Wars of Peace, that led to my being hired by the Council on Foreign Relations in 2002.
So that’s a random career path, which just happens to be what I did, and there are a million other career paths out there. But basically, I think it just comes from learning stuff, working hard, working your way up, impressing people with your knowledge and judgment, gaining more responsibility, and taking advantage of that responsibility in a responsible way.

Advice to His Younger Self
BW: Looking back at your career, if you could tell your 20-year-old self one thing—one piece of advice, one mistake not to make—what would that be?

MB: Be less doctrinaire. Be less ideological. Because I tended to be pretty staunchly conservative—not in my youth, but later—and I feel like it led me down some dead ends.
I regret some positions I took, for example supporting the invasion of Iraq. In 2003, I kind of kicked myself and asked, “How could I have been so dumb?” But I wasn’t the only person who made that mistake, for sure.
I should have been more ready to question what folks on my own side were saying—to be more independent. And I probably should have focused more on fact-gathering rather than opinion-sharing.
This is something that’s even more prevalent today, where everybody has a blog or a Substack, or a podcast or whatever. There’s a huge marketplace for sharing opinions—that’s what drives so much internet traffic, social media traffic. But I think a lot of ideas are much less valuable and important than simply gathering the underlying information that allows you to reach cogent and coherent conclusions.
In some ways, I wish I had focused more on fact-gathering rather than opinionizing. I mean, where I have done a lot of fact-gathering over the years is writing my books, which tend to be pretty thick and have footnotes. And I’ve found that to be a really useful exercise, because when I’m writing journalism, I’m kind of using up everything in my brain—using every mental resource that I have—whereas when I’m doing research, when I’m writing a book, I’m actually building up my storehouse of facts and ideas. And I think that’s a very valuable thing to do.

The Historical Lesson He Worries We’re Forgetting
BW: As we wrap up with our final couple questions: when you look ahead, is there a historical lesson you’re most worried that we’re ignoring or misremembering right now?

MB: The obvious one is the dangers of isolationism and protectionism—which helped to plunge America and the world into the Great Depression and World War II. There was pretty much a post-1945 consensus that we wanted to promote free trade, alliances, American international leadership, standing up for democracy and resisting tyranny. That was a pretty bipartisan consensus in American politics.
And I feel like it’s broken down now with Donald Trump, who champions an America First foreign policy—using the very name that was employed by Charles Lindbergh and the isolationists of the 1930s. I never thought I would live long enough to see the resurgence of isolationism and protectionism, but here we are. That seems like a pretty obvious historical lesson that we ignore at our peril.

What to read—and why it matters
BW: And then finally, as is customary with this blog: for people interested in the field that you’re working in—or wanting to follow a similar career path—what pieces of literature (a book, an essay, even a poem) would you recommend to them, and why?

MB: Oh, gee—that’s a…

BW: You can say your own books!

MB: Yeah, of course—all my collective works are everything you need to know---I don’t know. It’s really hard to say. I would just say: read a lot of serious books. It’s hard for me to cite one book that I would recommend above all others.
I knew when I was a kid, in the 1980s, I was influenced by books like The Wise Men, which was co-written by your professor, Walter Isaacson. I was also influenced by Robert A. Caro’s biographies of Lyndon Johnson. I’m just kind of glancing at my bookshelf now. I was influenced by historians like William Manchester and Barbara Tuchman.
And I think a lot of academic historians—even at the time—would tend to look down their noses at folks like Tuchman or Manchester or Caro or Isaacson or others by saying they were “popularizers,” that they were not proper academic historians. But I think what they really did was write history in an accessible, exciting way that made people much more knowledgeable—and made it a pleasure to learn about the past.
I fear that a lot of people don’t know a lot of history these days, as surveys of civic literacy will point out. And so I think we’re prey to a lot of political and societal delusions because people don’t know enough of what happened in the past. And I think those kinds of works of popular history—which is kind of what I do as well—are a way to rectify that ignorance, and to get people much more knowledgeable about the past, which I think is a basic building block not just of your professional life, but of citizenship.

BW: I absolutely agree. I remember reading Isaacson’s Kissinger biography at the beginning of my sophomore year, and that’s really what sparked my interest in foreign affairs. Mr. Boot, it’s been an honor and a pleasure. I really appreciate you taking the time with me.
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MB: Great. Pleasure to talk with you.