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Comment by CamperBob2 | Hacker News Reader

It's fallen below 40% for the first time, per Nate Silver, and that poll was taken before this story came out.

If he follows through on his threat to destroy all of Iran's petroleum infrastructure, fuel prices will rise to unprecedented levels and remain there for a very long time. He will not be able to blame anyone else. People will plaster gas pumps with "I did that!" stickers, only with Trump's picture this time, rather than Biden's.

And it still won't force Iran to open the Strait. He has no good options there. Iran is second only to Russia when it comes to shrugging off staggering losses in wartime. Trump cannot force the Iranians to do much of anything without either invading them or nuking them. If he does the former, the resulting carnage will cost him his remaining support among Republicans at all levels including the MAGA faithful. If he does the latter, he's definitely finished.

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Approval rating is different from preference, which is what the OP was talking about. He may have only a 40% approval rating, but if the approval rating of a putative Democratic opponent is lower, he'd still win an election.

Of course he (supposedly) can't be on the ballot any more, but a midterm election is always seen as a referendum on the President. If Democrats win in November they have some ability to hamper his ability to do... whatever it is people voted for him to do.

A 40% approval rating for the President doesn't bode especially well for him in November. But "Democrats in Congress" have an 18% approval rating, so voters aren't thrilled with them, either.

Nuking won't accomplish anything anyway. There's no obvious target that would "defeat" Iran given the seemingly decentralized command structure, and using nuclear weapons anywhere near the Strait would render it unusable.

>the resulting carnage will cost him his remaining support among Republicans at all levels *including the MAGA faithful*

Doubt

It will cost him some of his remaining support among the MAGA faithful. Some of them are just in love with Trump, or at least with the image Trump presents. Some are in love with Trump's (stated) policies, like "America first" and "no new wars".

And even of those who are in love with Trump's image, this may tarnish the image enough for some of them to fall out of love with it.

It won't cost him all of MAGA. But it will cost him some.

I mean personally even a white Christian european country Ukraine didn't garner much maga support, Iran are "brown Muslims" and the "enemy". I feel it doesn't have much impact except for the truly ideologically antiwar otherwise most magas seem to without much difficulty flit between contradictory opinions, especially if Trump said it. It will cost some of the support yes, but I think that's because of people like Tucker Carlson.

To clarify my point above, I meant "the resulting carnage" among America's armed forces, not Iran's.

MAGA obviously doesn't care about carnage that we dole out to the Iranians, including Iranian children, but they presumably will object to a tide of body bags arising from the actions of a President who promised them "No more foreign wars."

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