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 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.
No one’s thinking America cant succeed at the killing partz. It’s what comes after that people are worried about.
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.)
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.
I don't think this means the GOP keeps the House. But Trump got a bump from Venezuela, particularly within his party.
This is nonsense. If you actually believe this, spend some time around your elected representatives and in Washington.
> 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.
There was no reason to believe Harris will be more likely to start a war. They did not cared about that bit. It just sounded better the "I would never vote for democrat" or "she is black woman" or "I want to harm trans people" or "I want to stick it to liberals".
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.
The same sentiment that cause Nazi party to rise in power has never been eliminated, its just resurfaced itself years later. USA is not the only one with conservative problem, multiple countries in Europe have signs that right wing populism is on the rise.
And in order to be eliminated, we have to be able to get to extreme levels of social policing. And the only way to get there is through a social reset where people forgo all the comforts in life and are forced to confront the things that are actually important.
Fuck. That. That is not the world I am fighting for. Go live in North Korea if you want that.
> its a symptom.
We have very different ideas of what Trump is a symptom of.
Even for those that are doing political outreach, while the effort being put in is more than the average person, the direction is misplaced - in 2024 it was pretty clear that no matter how much information you give people, they are going to vote a certain way because of extreme polarization.
If people were willing to actually FIGHT for what they believe in through offensive means, physical or cyber, with direct results, I would have a different opinion.
But at this point, its pretty clear where society is headed. I don't want to live in that world either, but shit is going to boil over at one point or another, and delaying the inevitable just means we all get fucked when we are senior citizens instead of within the next decade.
This statement shows that the person has voted Trump in the past election, not sure how thats a presumption.
I think IRGCs are much more robust and zealous than whatever Maduro had.
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?
The racists love it when Muslims get killed
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
To be clear, I don't think the chances of that happening are high.
The remaining neocons who have surprisingly managed to weasel their way back into influence.
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...
Congress will not let him have a third term regardless of what he says or thinks.
I can see JD being a figurehead with very public Trump support.
Lol, 'let'. Whose going to stop him?
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 they were wrong.