> Nothing like a war to boost your popularity just before the elections
If he pulls off a regime change, even a Delcy-style swaparoo, he'll get it, and arguably not undeservedly. It will ultimately come down to Iran's capacity to inflict casualties on American forces.
I’m not so sure. This is no where near a priority issue for most Americans, “I can’t afford eggs and the immigrant I buy pizza from got shipped to a warehouse but thank god the regime changed in Iran.”
More than anything else, conservatives love the feeling that they are winning. Over a rival sports team, over a political opponent, and especially over a foreign power. This is why MAGA won over the neocons so easily, the MAGA shtick is to claim to be always winning.
Many conservatives voted for trump because they thought he wasn't a "war hawk", they don't want the US in wars around the world, they don't want their children sent off to die in foreign lands. So they voted for trump and then got "Department of War", and now a war in Iran, the last thing they wanted.
This isn't a defense of the president or his policies but we don't know if this will be a (sustained) war or rather a week or two of airstrikes like the previous iteration and the Maduro thing.
> Many conservatives voted for trump because they thought he wasn't a "war hawk"
I doubt their honesty. Considering they blamed Biden for Russia invading Ukraine and October 7 with the galaxybrain reasoning of "It didn't happen while Trump was in office", I am convinced the isolationism thing is just an unserious talking point.
Even the Joe Rogan MAGAs should remember when they cried on social media about how they were about to be drafted after the Soleimani thing under Trump.
Schumer was brought into a briefing on Iran and clearly 'got his mind right' in there. I don't know who makes decisions in government, but it's not the people on camera. US elections are irrelevant to consequential matters, and we waste too much time thinking about them.
I think this framing is bad, it's not that people don't think there are consequences it's that it's 50/50 on whether the consequences will be personally worse for them. There are few, maybe no upsides, to elections in the U.S. for the majority of the electorate.
Obviously. They would have kidnapped or assassinated leadership many decades ago otherwise. They have tried and failed many times. They're talking about trying to break the state though, which isn't something the US tried in Vz. This'll be much harder.
Many folks said that if the supreme leader got killed then it's all over. I honestly skeptical since IRGC folks would take over and I think they are much more militant than the Supreme Leader.
You are right to be skeptical. Khomeini died and now Khamenei is supreme leader. He too will have a successor if he dies (or is dead as Isreal clamed a moment ago). Iran has spent the last few weeks picking out successors four deep for each office. It's been the main news besides the "negotiations".
> We didn’t change the regime in Venezuela though right?
Practically speaking, we changed it. The foreign and energy policies we care about changed. The notion that you need to wholesale clean shop to qualify as regime change is misguided and counterproductive [1].
(On the other end of the spectrum, the fact that we kept the Japanese Emperor on his throne doesn't mean we didn't change the Japanese regime.)
I don't know if the same theory works in Iran though right, Iran is amidst economic collapse. It seems like the situation in Venezula with Maduro was tenable so when we decapitated the leader and got what we wanted it was ok that maybe most things didn't change. Is there a similar theory for Iran that's not soaked in hubris?
> Is there a similar theory for Iran that's not soaked in hubris?
Lots of factions in Iran, including within the IRGC. Khamenei's bunker gets hit, oh no, new dude knives the competition and then makes a call to the White House.
Trump could liberate every repressed country in the world and it would not impact in the slightest the cold hard fact that neither I nor most the people I know will ever vote R again.
I really hope the US electorate never forgives the Republican Party for the damage it’s done to this country, but I suspect that people’s memories will be short.
If the US public was inclined to “never forgive” those kind of offenses (or even to really fully reject them even once they no longer had dominant support) then the Democratic Party would have been destroyed for its role as the party of slavery and insurrection instead of surviving long enough to reject the bigotry that motivated those stances only to have the Republican Party immediately pick it up.
If you are admitting that you voted R in 2024, and only now you won't vote R, that really doesn't fix anything. Your bar is set so insanely low that you will vote R on someone who is slightly better than Trump.
As a life long D voter, I am personally going to vote R every election now because I want US to sink into the ground so low that people like you experience actual pain and suffering.
Stop it. You're not helping. This kind of thing is really counterproductive. Welcome your comrade with open arm. Give him time to warm up. Don't be an absolutist.
They leveraged special operations forces in Venezuela. Iran has two US carrier groups on their front door; this operation is not going to be as precise as the one against Maduro.
Having grown up deep in the Bible belt, I can say that there's often a lot of overlap between the Jesus people and the various -ists
Bigotry has been a big part of the Moral Majority's platform for decades for a reason - it works on that demographic
I have an armchair theory about one possible contributing factor
These are two of the most fundamental beliefs of evangelicals and they don't make much sense when you put them side-by-side:
1. God is the ultimate progenitor and prototype of love
2. God wants to torture a LOT of people forever, some of whom you may know personally and may be all appearances be decent people
This creates a certain amount of cognitive dissonance
Rather than reconsider those beliefs (which may result in your own everlasting torment), it's far easier to resolve that discomfort by dehumanizing non-Christians. Maybe they're actually really rotten people that deserve to be tortured
True but they will have a hard time ignoring the 22nd amendment of the US constitution and it would be an easy move to remove him from the election process which a majority of the states themselves could do without opposition.
They might try the good old Putin trick, have a puppet elected on behalf of Trump and let Trump have another high-ranking position (e.g. Vice President) and hold the real power. Trump can still do most of campaigning, and there is also ample opportunity for election fraud.
Each state can decide to not list him in the election process. Some red states for sure would but plenty would not including a few red and purple states.
You're acting like people are rational. It's just about power. Appearing strong appeals to the apes inside the humans. And no one is more in touch with his inner ape than Trump.
Trump can literally do all the things that the epstein files accuse him of doing, right on camera in front of everyone, and Americans will still vote for him all because he isn't a "woke" black woman.
Military action in Iran is deeply unpopular, being supported by just 27% of US adult citizens [1]. As an aside, Congress literally doesn't care what voters think [2]. The pearl-clutching about this from Congressional Democrats isn't about policy but process, with the likes of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries saying Congress should authorize this action, not that it shouldn't happen.
I'm interested in what makes empires tick, what their basis of power is.
Spain in the colonial era was propped up by looting silver from Central and South America, for example.
The British Empire is what many (including me) like to call the "drug dealer empire". First tobacco then later opium. Any claims that we didn't know about the health risks of tobacco are complete BS (eg [3]).
Circling back to your point, the US is what I like to call the "arms dealer empire". WW1 and WW2 massively enriched the United States. NATO is essentially a protection racket for Europe and the price is, you guessed it, buying arms from the United States.
And the next Budget has proposed increasing "defense" spending from an already eye-popping $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion [4]. Where does that money go? Arms, weapons programs, defense contractors, the ultra-wealthy.
War is good for business even though it's unpopular.
> Nothing like a war to boost your popularity just before the elections
If he pulls off a regime change, even a Delcy-style swaparoo, he'll get it, and arguably not undeservedly. It will ultimately come down to Iran's capacity to inflict casualties on American forces.
I’m not so sure. This is no where near a priority issue for most Americans, “I can’t afford eggs and the immigrant I buy pizza from got shipped to a warehouse but thank god the regime changed in Iran.”
More than anything else, conservatives love the feeling that they are winning. Over a rival sports team, over a political opponent, and especially over a foreign power. This is why MAGA won over the neocons so easily, the MAGA shtick is to claim to be always winning.
Many conservatives voted for trump because they thought he wasn't a "war hawk", they don't want the US in wars around the world, they don't want their children sent off to die in foreign lands. So they voted for trump and then got "Department of War", and now a war in Iran, the last thing they wanted.
This isn't a defense of the president or his policies but we don't know if this will be a (sustained) war or rather a week or two of airstrikes like the previous iteration and the Maduro thing.
> Many conservatives voted for trump because they thought he wasn't a "war hawk"
I doubt their honesty. Considering they blamed Biden for Russia invading Ukraine and October 7 with the galaxybrain reasoning of "It didn't happen while Trump was in office", I am convinced the isolationism thing is just an unserious talking point.
Even the Joe Rogan MAGAs should remember when they cried on social media about how they were about to be drafted after the Soleimani thing under Trump.
> This is no where near a priority issue for most Americans
I don't think this means the GOP keeps the House. But Trump got a bump from Venezuela, particularly within his party.
Schumer was brought into a briefing on Iran and clearly 'got his mind right' in there. I don't know who makes decisions in government, but it's not the people on camera. US elections are irrelevant to consequential matters, and we waste too much time thinking about them.
I never understand how someone can look at Trump and the last year and think elections don’t matter or have consequences.
I think this framing is bad, it's not that people don't think there are consequences it's that it's 50/50 on whether the consequences will be personally worse for them. There are few, maybe no upsides, to elections in the U.S. for the majority of the electorate.
> US elections are irrelevant to consequential matters
This is nonsense. If you actually believe this, spend some time around your elected representatives and in Washington.
Is our memory so short? Regime change in Iraq destabilized that region for 2 decades.
>Delcy-style swaparoo,
I think IRGCs are much more robust and zealous than whatever Maduro had.
Obviously. They would have kidnapped or assassinated leadership many decades ago otherwise. They have tried and failed many times. They're talking about trying to break the state though, which isn't something the US tried in Vz. This'll be much harder.
Many folks said that if the supreme leader got killed then it's all over. I honestly skeptical since IRGC folks would take over and I think they are much more militant than the Supreme Leader.
You are right to be skeptical. Khomeini died and now Khamenei is supreme leader. He too will have a successor if he dies (or is dead as Isreal clamed a moment ago). Iran has spent the last few weeks picking out successors four deep for each office. It's been the main news besides the "negotiations".
somehow I dont think regime change is gonna happen before the midterms or even before 2028
> I dont think regime change is gonna happen before the midterms
I agree. But to be fair, I would have said the same thing about Venezuela a year ago. Maybe the term should be a regime slip.
We didn’t change the regime in Venezuela though right? Just decapitated it?
No one’s thinking America cant succeed at the killing partz. It’s what comes after that people are worried about.
> We didn’t change the regime in Venezuela though right?
Practically speaking, we changed it. The foreign and energy policies we care about changed. The notion that you need to wholesale clean shop to qualify as regime change is misguided and counterproductive [1].
(On the other end of the spectrum, the fact that we kept the Japanese Emperor on his throne doesn't mean we didn't change the Japanese regime.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Ba%27athification
I don't know if the same theory works in Iran though right, Iran is amidst economic collapse. It seems like the situation in Venezula with Maduro was tenable so when we decapitated the leader and got what we wanted it was ok that maybe most things didn't change. Is there a similar theory for Iran that's not soaked in hubris?
> Is there a similar theory for Iran that's not soaked in hubris?
Lots of factions in Iran, including within the IRGC. Khamenei's bunker gets hit, oh no, new dude knives the competition and then makes a call to the White House.
The U.S. is amidst economic collapse... hubris ...
Delusional. With your line of thought Al-Qaeda got regime change in the US.
I think he meant another regime not the Iranians.
Trump could liberate every repressed country in the world and it would not impact in the slightest the cold hard fact that neither I nor most the people I know will ever vote R again.
I really hope the US electorate never forgives the Republican Party for the damage it’s done to this country, but I suspect that people’s memories will be short.
If the US public was inclined to “never forgive” those kind of offenses (or even to really fully reject them even once they no longer had dominant support) then the Democratic Party would have been destroyed for its role as the party of slavery and insurrection instead of surviving long enough to reject the bigotry that motivated those stances only to have the Republican Party immediately pick it up.
If you are admitting that you voted R in 2024, and only now you won't vote R, that really doesn't fix anything. Your bar is set so insanely low that you will vote R on someone who is slightly better than Trump.
As a life long D voter, I am personally going to vote R every election now because I want US to sink into the ground so low that people like you experience actual pain and suffering.
Stop it. You're not helping. This kind of thing is really counterproductive. Welcome your comrade with open arm. Give him time to warm up. Don't be an absolutist.
You took a presumption and ran with it into baseless vitriol
They leveraged special operations forces in Venezuela. Iran has two US carrier groups on their front door; this operation is not going to be as precise as the one against Maduro.
Only I’m not exactly sure what constituency will support this war.
He wasn’t even smart enough to leave America open to attack, manufacture a pretext, and rally people around the flag like 9/11
Heck, there was even a better case in Korea & Vietnam. Even Venezuela. What’s the case this is America’s problem?
Funny how Iran is America's problem so much but Ukraine is not, despite signed security assurance to the Ukrainian people.
This is about Religion. Hegseth is the 'Holy warrior for God' type. If there is a pretense to kill Muslims Trump and him will take it.
Israel is in charge of America and they did noy sign any assurances with Ukraine
The Jesus people love it when Americas army support Israel
The racists love it when Muslims get killed
Having grown up deep in the Bible belt, I can say that there's often a lot of overlap between the Jesus people and the various -ists
Bigotry has been a big part of the Moral Majority's platform for decades for a reason - it works on that demographic
I have an armchair theory about one possible contributing factor
These are two of the most fundamental beliefs of evangelicals and they don't make much sense when you put them side-by-side:
1. God is the ultimate progenitor and prototype of love
2. God wants to torture a LOT of people forever, some of whom you may know personally and may be all appearances be decent people
This creates a certain amount of cognitive dissonance
Rather than reconsider those beliefs (which may result in your own everlasting torment), it's far easier to resolve that discomfort by dehumanizing non-Christians. Maybe they're actually really rotten people that deserve to be tortured
> Only I’m not exactly sure what constituency will support this war.
The remaining neocons who have surprisingly managed to weasel their way back into influence.
If a democracy is meaningfully created in Iran I will consider that a huge win for Trump and it would certainly make me more sympathetic to his party.
To be clear, I don't think the chances of that happening are high.
Nothing like a war to boost your popularity just before the elections
Congress will not let him have a third term regardless of what he says or thinks.
Congress seems to be quite toothless lately.
True but they will have a hard time ignoring the 22nd amendment of the US constitution and it would be an easy move to remove him from the election process which a majority of the states themselves could do without opposition.
They might try the good old Putin trick, have a puppet elected on behalf of Trump and let Trump have another high-ranking position (e.g. Vice President) and hold the real power. Trump can still do most of campaigning, and there is also ample opportunity for election fraud.
> Congress will let him...
Lol, 'let'. Whose going to stop him?
Each state can decide to not list him in the election process. Some red states for sure would but plenty would not including a few red and purple states.
In russia they had 2 terms limit as well. Putin found a quick work-around by basically running through Proxy.
I can see JD being a figurehead with very public Trump support.
You sure? Seems like a war for no reason is hardly going to get popular support.
From a man who campaigned on No New Wars.
You're acting like people are rational. It's just about power. Appearing strong appeals to the apes inside the humans. And no one is more in touch with his inner ape than Trump.
Americans are bloodthirsty freaks. Killing people is always popular with Americans.
Nothing like a war to push Epstein out of the headlines.
Almost every lever has been pulled.
The popularity aspect is irrelevant.
Trump can literally do all the things that the epstein files accuse him of doing, right on camera in front of everyone, and Americans will still vote for him all because he isn't a "woke" black woman.
because it’s more comfortable than admitting the people who run the show are scumbags.
because it’s more comfortable than admitting they were wrong.
Military action in Iran is deeply unpopular, being supported by just 27% of US adult citizens [1]. As an aside, Congress literally doesn't care what voters think [2]. The pearl-clutching about this from Congressional Democrats isn't about policy but process, with the likes of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries saying Congress should authorize this action, not that it shouldn't happen.
I'm interested in what makes empires tick, what their basis of power is.
Spain in the colonial era was propped up by looting silver from Central and South America, for example.
The British Empire is what many (including me) like to call the "drug dealer empire". First tobacco then later opium. Any claims that we didn't know about the health risks of tobacco are complete BS (eg [3]).
Circling back to your point, the US is what I like to call the "arms dealer empire". WW1 and WW2 massively enriched the United States. NATO is essentially a protection racket for Europe and the price is, you guessed it, buying arms from the United States.
And the next Budget has proposed increasing "defense" spending from an already eye-popping $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion [4]. Where does that money go? Arms, weapons programs, defense contractors, the ultra-wealthy.
War is good for business even though it's unpopular.
[1]: https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54158-few-americans-suppor...
[2]: https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba/
[3]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15198996/
[4]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-proposes-massive...
You really think the elections will happen