Going Backwards, Declaring Victory
President Trump and Secretary Hegseth Humiliate the U.S. before the World.
The losses on Donald Trump’s watch keep mounting.
After wasting the lives of 13 U.S. servicemen, wounding an additional 415, killing thousands of Iranians –including the needless slaughter of more than 110 schoolchildren in a strike using outdated intelligence – and costing American taxpayers more than $40 billion, the U.S. faces a foe that has closed the Strait of Hormuz. The busy traffic hub of the world economy was wide open pre-war.
Total incompetence. But, of course, the American electorate revealed massive incompetence in electing Trump to a second term. We could have elected a supremely competent, very smart, totally prepared Kamala Harris in 2024. Instead, several million “low-information” swing voters decided the inflation on Joe Biden’s watch, an astronomical 2.9 percent for the 12 months ending December 2024, was unacceptable. Historically obtuse to what severe inflation looks like, they believed, yet again, a serial liar, a man with absolutely no moral character, a convicted felon and admitted sexual assaulter. They trusted him. Fools!
People who watched Donald Trump as a candidate and president in his first term knew Trump would be worse in his second go-round. On a mission of retribution against his enemies and surrounded, this time, only by sycophants, Trump’s fragile ego dominates White House decisions.
We need to improve “civic intelligence.” Right now, ours is woefully low. Our democratic dilemma goes back to the dawn of the modern era in the 1920s when Walter Lippmann argued that average people could not grapple intelligently with a big, complex modern world. Because the public was a “phantom” and politically illiterate, public policy should, Lippmann said, be left to the experts.
As the philosopher John Dewey understood, there are problems with Lippmann’s solution. When people grow tired of the experts and elites, a surly electorate steps in. They listen to politicians who speak to their fears and frustrations. They elect leaders who promise the moon and who scapegoat others as the cause of our problems. Too often, this aroused public elects a man who says, “I alone can fix it.”
The United States faces a breakdown of constitutional rule and a collapse of our stature in the international order because a populist revolt elected Donald Trump to power. People untrained in the basics of politics and lacking sufficient knowledge to make wise decisions are easy marks for dangerous demagogues. In President Donald Trump, we have twice elected both a demagogue and a fool.
Beyond stopping Trump and his epic destruction of the American system, we need to imagine and implement a serious program of civic education. For far too long, we focus all our attention on getting ahead economically, giving short shift to the community and the public sphere.
We assume, wrongly, that the political system will take care of itself. We assume it will continue to work even when a great swath of the public has a paucity of political knowledge and pays little attention to politics and government. Our situation is made worse by the breakdown of journalism in a digital age that has left people siloed in information bubbles too often filled with misinformation and propaganda.
Hating the other party and blowing up the current system without a plan on what to put in its place, which is what is happening under Trump 2.0, puts us in a far worse position that the frustrating position in which we started.
Besides a tragic loss of life, woeful injuries, and massive destruction, this war has accomplished nothing. Iran’s nuclear stockpile still exists, the regime remains intact, and Iran has new leverage over the world’s economy. If the Trump team is able to negotiate a peace deal that includes limits on Iran’s nuclear program, the deal will be worse than the one negotiated by President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry.
That deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), limited Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting international sanctions. The JCPOA, of which the U.K, France, Germany, and Russia were signatories, protected the U.S. and the world from Iran’s possible nuclear aggression. None of those nations said Iran was cheating. Nevertheless, because this incredibly important feat of diplomacy was negotiated by the Obama team, Trump and the right argued, falsely, that it was weak and a sellout.
The right, led by Fox News, insisted the deal was worthless. Fools!
The probability is high that this war ends with Iran being a more powerful global player than ever before. Wow, such an accomplishment! President Trump, in his infinite wisdom, has put the United States in a tough position. By damaging, but not toppling the regime, by damaging, but not stopping Iran’s nuclear program, we have enabled an emboldened Iran to emerge stronger.
President Trump’s Iran War is “a colossal strategic mistake, a predictable strategic mistake,” one that is “worse than Vietnam,” says University of Chicago Professor Robert Pape, an expert of military strategy and international relations.
Pape says the war is turning Iran into a major world power. Since the Cold War there have been three centers of power: the United States, China and Russia. Now Iran could join them. Not because Iran has extraordinary economic or military capability, but because Iran controls the “most important energy choke point in the global economy, the Strait of Hormuz.” Pape says, “If Iranian control over the strait persist for months or years … it will drastically reshape the world order to the detriment of the United States.”
The war demonstrates Iran can control the strait without closing it. It just has to fire on or threaten to strike a cargo vessel or tanker every few days. European leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron understand the flow of oil can’t be guaranteed without Iran’s cooperation.
Over the weekend, Politico reported that Republicans were cautiously optimistic that President Trump had found an exit-ramp from the mess in Iran and the Gulf. “Big sigh of relief from congressional Republicans today,” said former Florida GOP Rep. Carlos Curbelo, “It seems they will be able to put the Iran conflict in the rear view mirror.”
Not so fast. Because Trump is so mercurial, impulsive, and constantly changes his position, it will be incredibly hard for the two parties to negotiate a peace deal that will stick. With good reason, the Iranians do not trust Trump. Why should they? Having been attacked twice while in good-faith negotiations with the Trump White House, the Iranians are fully aware that Trump is a compulsive liar and scoundrel.
The Wall Street Journal provided this damning report about our Negotiator in Chief, writing: “A president who thrives on drama is bringing an even more intense version of his unorthodox, maximalist approach … He is veering between belligerent and conciliatory approaches and grappling behind the scenes with just how badly things could go wrong.”
The Journal reports Trump fears duplicating Jimmy Carter’s political fate after Carter was unable to bring home the American hostages held by Iran in 1979 after the Iranian Revolution toppled the Shah.
The GOP hopes to get a bit of relief on gas prices. Yet, even if the Strait opens, gasoline prices will come down very slowly. Sorry consumers, the oil giants love making money.
Adding to America’s reputational damage, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth made himself a laughingstock on a global scale last week when he led a prayer that quoted, not from the Bible, but from “Pulp Fiction” and the scripture of Quentin Tarantino. Just as Trump is most comfortable playing reality TV as president, the rest of his cabinet including Hegseth “perform” their roles for the TV cameras without actually knowing how to do what needs to be done.
Chris Hayes made a wise observation about Trump on All In with Chris Hayes. Hayes noted how Trump tries radical policies destined for failure and as the failure mounts and gets close to catastrophe he walks it back a notch and declares a great victory. The country ends up in worse shape, but Trump asks everyone to thank him for “solving” the problem he caused.