It is inarguable that the war in Iran is a massive drag on Donald Trump’s numbers, as well as those of the Republican Party heading into November. This is largely driven by consistently high gas prices, which also drive up the price of everything else.
Trump obviously knows this, which is why he’s been searching for an off-ramp for months. He knows he was elected to get gas prices down and the economy in shape (which he did until the war jammed up the gears).
But a major problem for Trump’s presidency right now is that nearly everyone outside his inner circle pushing for this war — and this includes the entirety of so-called conservative pundits who never found a war they weren’t willing to make others fight and pay for — also hates Trump (and especially J.D. Vance) and sees the war’s negative effect on his popularity as a secondary benefit of the war they’ve been salivating over for decades. To them, his declining numbers are a feature, not a bug.
With the Iran war, the NeverTrump neocons have gotten everything they ever dreamed of — war (which they love), and a massive political quagmire for Trump that threatens to consume the rest of his presidency and destroy any future political chances of J.D. Vance and the entire MAGA/America First movement.
These people, and this includes most GOP senators, believe that Trump/MAGA is just a fever that will eventually break, and all they have to do is wait it out and then take over what’s left of the party after that. They don’t care if Republicans lose in the midterms in November. In fact, they’d welcome it. They would much rather rule over the wreckage than continue having to take a back seat to Trump or his successor.
This is why they refuse to pass the SAVE America Act. It’s why they’ve been blocking recess appointments and slow-walking the entire nominations process since the very first day of this presidency.
Washington Republicans very much prefer the minority, where they get all the perks of power but none of the obligations or accountability. They can go on their taxpayer-funded junkets and slip provisions into Democrat-written bills for their benefit of their K Street lobbyist donors without having to actually pass anything their voters demand. When you’re in the minority, you don’t have to spend all your time lying to your own voters about why you can’t do anything despite controlling the Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court.
If November goes poorly, they’ll then leave Trump to fend for himself as a new Democrat Congress launches its latest series of hoaxes and investigations and impeachment circuses designed to make sure Trumpism as a movement in 2028 has no gas left in the tank. It will be the Russia hoax and the Ukraine impeachment hoax and the J6 hoax all over again.
The neocon war pimps and the RINO establishment would much rather Republicans lose in 2026 and 2028, allowing the establishment to rebuild the party in its own image heading into 2032, than watch the Trump/MAGA agenda succeed and lead to a third or maybe even a fourth term following victory in the presidential election in 2028.
This is the reality of the current political situation. The Iran war is a mess, it’s being pimped by people who are more than happy to watch it destroy Trump’s presidency, and they are being completely dishonest about their own motivations as well as the political effect of the war going forward.
