If Iran’s allowed to rebuild, they could “create a far greater country” than they’ve ever had before, Donald Trump mused, from the UN General Assembly rostrum on Tuesday. “Maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East. Or even the world.”
Trump’s remarks betrayed a laughable ignorance of history. We’re talking, after all, about the successor nation to the Persian Empire. It’s not exactly as if Iran was never “great.”
Certainly, Iran has room to improve its lot relative to the nation’s recent history. But making Iran “far greater than it ever was before” will be a decidedly tall task. At one point — let’s call it 500 BCE — the Persians governed nearly half the world’s population. (Eat your heart out, Adolf.)
Anyway, Trump said Tuesday the fate of Iran’s in his hands. “I have a decision to make,” the Nobel Peace Prize hopeful told the Assembly. “Will a deal be made or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic?” he wondered, with a casual shrug. “Do I drive them into hell, with no chance of survival and no hope for future generations?”
The tentative answer to that latter question appears to be “no.” “I believe we’ll make a deal,” Trump declared, on the way to suggesting the IRGC’s miscalculating by holding out for November’s congressional ballot. “They’re waiting to see how I do in the mid-term election,” he said. “What they don’t realize is that I’m not running. I did that already. I’ll be here for two and a half years.”
As ever, it’s difficult (read: impossible) to suppress a chuckle. Trump’s disregard for decorum has morphed over the years into something like vindictive disdain for propriety. It’s as though seemliness itself wronged him at some juncture and he resolved to spend the rest of his life avenging the slight. (Some would say that’s precisely what happened. And that the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner was the fateful moment.)
Trump was adamant Tuesday that the mid-terms won’t impact his decision-making with regard to ending the war. That’s nails on a chalkboard to some Republicans for whom soaring pump prices (and particularly record-high diesel) are an albatross.
A few minutes after his address, which was at turns abrasive and asinine, Trump attended a signing ceremony for his security “deal” with Greenland. “If we let ourselves be divided as allies, then we do our foes a favor,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said at the signing.
There’s a “with friends like these” joke to be had. I’ll let readers write it themselves.
Depending on how the midterms go, Trump may lose the ability to continue the war. Which is probably acceptable to him. Since he cannot win the war he started, next best is to blame others for forcing him to end it.
Interesting
We think Iran is ignoring him now, if the democrats do well in the midterms……
“Do I drive them into hell, with no chance of survival and no hope for future generations?”
– Leader of the ‘Pro-Life’ party
I tire of making these jokes. I really am sick of pointing out how hypocritical these people are and yet, the hypocrisy seems to be the only way to get through to the propaganda addicted that, perhaps, the people they’ve been told are aligned with their values might actually be misleading them.
Who am I kidding, they don’t actually have any values.
All hell is going to break loose after the mid-terms. That’s my prediction. There won’t be any restraints left on Trump (and that includes scenarios where he loses both chambers of Congress (but don’t bet against Susan Collins. She’s a survivor.))
I don’t know what form it’ll take, but it’ll probably be a bit of everything everywhere all at once. It could be military action in Iran. Or Yemen. Or Cuba. Russia or Ukraine. Or hell, I dunno, Myanmar. Who knows? It could be aggressive moves against recalcitrant Federal Reserve members. Or judges. It could be crazy trade restrictions. It will definitely be a wildly wide range of executive orders.
And don’t forget, the enemy gets a vote. Lots of very powerful, very rich, very important people have been waiting for the midterms. That includes the leaders of… well just about every country on Earth. It includes oligarchs of every stripe. It also includes the Democratic Party.
Have you noticed anything missing from the last two years of congressional Democrat political pronouncements? How about the word “impeach” in all its various conjugations. I don’t mean it has gone completely unuttered, but you’ve heard perishingly little of it despite copious quantities of above-the-table corruption. Of course that’s partly because there’s no way a Republican majority House would ever allow it to come to a vote. But also, I suspect it’s because they’re keeping their powder dry, amassing a vast body of evidence, and preparing to unlimber it all at once like the Schwerer Gustav just as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
Markets, politicians, generals, CEOs, they’re all waiting for the mid-terms, and then, in the immortal words of Izzy Mandelbaum, “It’s go time.”
The absence of impeachment talk from Democratic party leadership is behind the push for more unconventional candidates in their primaries. The establishment Democrats are keen to keep the oligarchy rolling and protect themselves. Meanwhile voters are absolutely over all of this sh*t from both parties and want a reset. Could this result in an FDR style reset?
I agree with you about the midterms causing chaos. The Capitol could easily experience a real Reichstag moment. Losing hurts that man enough to do something that horrific.
It’s all such a joke at this point. Pro Publica published very clear evidence of corruption by Susan Collins (and to be fair, some democrats as well) today, but it won’t matter because she’ll get reelected along with at least 49 other Republicans (and if they come up one short, they’ll claim fraud or just get Fetterman to switch parties).
Every time it mattered, either Collins or one of the other “centrists” caved while others burnished their centrist credentials by voting against Trump so he could get what he wanted out of congress. The same with the Supreme Court and soon to be the Fed. It’ll be the same as it ever was after the midterms.
Meanwhile, they are kicking hundreds of thousands of people of ACA plans while they continue to stuff the defense budget with giveaways to the well connected welfare kings of the donor class. How many missiles will that savings buy us?
But don’t worry, John Curtis is calling for an investigation into Donald Trump, Jr. and I’m sure he’ll bring down the hammer by politely asking Don Jr. to donate a tiny sliver of his ill-gotten gains to a “charity” that is just another front to funnel money to the donor class which will then magically reappear in a Trump bank account. Then Don Jr. will get Dear Leader a “World’s Greatest Dad” shirt to show how much he cares.
Wow. I am slow clapping for the subtlety of that last joke. It works on a level that only maybe four people will get. I am in awe dayjob.
Now for a complete digression, I have notes on Fetterman.
Everyone, take this to heart as one who knows him well (not personally, just knowledgeable): Fetterman will never switch parties.
Sure, he might declare himself an independent or something, but he will never become a Republican. Frankly, I’d bet heavily against him even running for reelection in ’28, but that’s a separate issue. I’ll explain.
I’ve been following his career since he was a Bernie Sanders endorsed Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania. I would have told you (and was happily telling anyone who would listen) that he was future presidential material. Seriously.
His stroke fundamentally changed his personality, as brain damage has a habit of doing. It didn’t turn him from a progressive into a conservative; rather, it turned him into a completely inflexible human being.
That’s the important part. He’s totally inflexible now. That’s the heuristic for understanding Fetterman and anticipating his actions.
He likely didn’t have any strong opinions about Israel or Bibi or any of that before October 7 (I’m sure he had opinions, just nothing entrenched). After October 7, he had the same reaction we all had. Righteous indignation, and total clarity about who was the evil perpetrator and who was the innocent victim. He was never a Zionist, he just formed a rock-hard opinion on the morning of October 8, and will adhere to it until the day his cardio-vascular system kills him. He’s incapable of changing it now, regardless of how many atrocities the IDF commits.
He has a lot of other views too. Views that are completely incompatible with the Republican party. And that’s why he will never switch to the Republican party.
Trans rights, reproductive rights, union rights, you name it. If I were coaching someone running against him in a Republican primary debate, I would just tell them to corner him on whether teenage grade-school trans women should be allowed to use the girls’ bathroom. He believes firmly in their right to live their lives according to their identity, and he is totally inflexible on that, as he is on all things.
He’s probably the second most (after Bernie Sanders) pro-labor Senator there is. He still holds plenty of the progressive ideas he held when he was just starting his political career, and he will never change. His stroke destroyed him, and it’s a shame. I know how much commenters here probably despise him, but don’t let that blind you when I tell you with full sincerity that he could have been a 21st century Bill Clinton (minus the philandering. His wife is actually amazing unlike–)…
I don’t have any pithy concluding paragraph. He’s probably done with politics after his term ends anyway. But he’ll never join the Republican Party. You can bet on it.
Thanks for the insight, it explains a lot that was previously incomprehensible.
Former Pennsylvanian and Fetterman supporter here – I hope you are right. It’s a sad story.
The headline for this post perfectly captures the dystopian farce we are living.
“It’s as though seemliness itself wronged him at some juncture and he resolved to spend the rest of his life avenging the slight. (Some would say that’s precisely what happened. And that the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner was the fateful moment.)”
Some still jokingly blame Seth Myers for this. Obama also had a nice run at him that night.
Trump and his acolytes already have plans to disrupt or deny the midterm elections according to a recent Sy Hersch article. They really have good financial and legal self preservation reasons to do so. Staging ICE at Hispanic polling places to suppress the vote is the most ingenuous mentioned.