The role that the post-9/11 wars played in Mr. Trump’s rise cannot be overstated, said Dan Caldwell, a public policy adviser at Defense Priorities, a nonpartisan research group focused on what it calls realism and restraint in foreign policy. He pointed to a study by professors at the University of Minnesota and Boston University, which found that the counties in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that moved most from Barack Obama in 2012 to Mr. Trump in 2016 were disproportionately affected by military deployments, deaths and injuries.
“It is a critical part of the rise of Trump and Trumpism,” Mr. Caldwell said. “You cannot separate the rise of Trump from our failed wars after Sept. 11.”
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