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The Journal has an article today about the increasing unreality of the strategy, if one can call it that, the U.S. is using to approach Trump’s war with Iran. The headline tells the story: Trump is Losing Patience Over an Iran War with No Clear End in Sight. The article appears to be based on accounts from various advisors who’ve been present at planning meetings with Trump. It’s filled with quotes about how he’s out of patience, mad, fed up, has lost confidence in diplomacy, etc. One advisors says he’s moved into “revenge mode.” He’s telling advisors he thinks he can “break the Iranians’ will through an aggressive bombing campaign.”
A constant through-line in the article (and based on this account of Trump’s private White House rants) is that the Iranians can’t be trusted and that Trump keeps making deals with them that they simply break. I certainly don’t see the Iranian government as very trustworthy either. But this whole set of claims is a fantasy. Trump has never had any agreements or deals with the Iranians. What he’s had is a series of notional ceasefires in which nothing of substance or consequence is actually agreed to — you might sum them up with the famous Bill & Ted’s maxim to “be excellent to each other.” The point of these deals has been to calm international oil markets and give Trump space to moonwalk away from his totally self-inflicted debacle. But since these ceasefires are only “deals” to begin negotiations the actual war aims and demands of each side eventually seep through. Then they go back to fighting. Each deal really amounts to a temporary or contingent U.S. surrender. Trump needs them to calm oil markets and lower the U.S. price of gas. Iran wants it to consolidate its gains and get a break for aerial bombardment.
Another take on the governor’s race in Wisconsin, from TPM Reader BC …
Just listened to this week’s podcast and read the reader’s commentary on the race, which I largely agree with and mostly want to add on to. Like JB mentioned, Francesca Hong is really hustling in a way the other candidates are not. I live in the Madison area and at first thought that was the reason why I only noticed her campaign. Our kids even attend the same taekwondo studio, which I only learned in the last week. So I live on her home turf.
Perhaps some of this is by design. But Donald Trump adding Israel normalization to an apparently already signed nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia is an example of a recurring issue. Trump seems only loosely connected to the people who are negotiating foreign policy deals on his behalf — something at least somewhat odd coming from the purported avatar of unitary executive authority. We saw this again and again with his “deals” with Iran. A deal gets initialed and he’s out the next day claiming that agreements are in the deal that clearly aren’t. As I said, some of this may be by design. Some of it may be Trump’s need to hold attention and demand post-signature fluffing to keep him on board. In private business, he was notorious for coming up with new demands or needs after finalizing deals or simply never making payments the deals required. But at least part of it seems to be a feature of the bubble environment of the second term White House. Difficult issues are kept from him; he’s yesed or reassured that things are in agreements that are not (“Oh that one agreement is definitely in there, Don. Don’t you worry!”)
Longtime TPM Reader JB gives us a rundown on the rather suboptimal gubernatorial situation in Wisconsin …
If I may, a few thoughts on the confusing campaign for Wisconsin governor:
First: Tony Evers (pronounced Eeevers here, incidentally) is personally well liked throughout the state. He is regarded by most Democrats here as the guy who saved Wisconsin from Scott Walker. He is also widely regarded as a poor administrator who missed many opportunities and was often ineffective in getting his message across to the public.
Second: Sara Rodriguez based her candidacy on her knowledge of state government and ability to manage a large organization (she had worked in healthcare administration). That’s why her campaign manager freelancing and her campaign going close to broke drove her out of the race. She had run on having some of Evers’s strengths without his biggest weakness. Live and learn.
A few days ago I wrote about popular constitutionalism and Slate’s new podcast series on that topic. This is a critical civic topic because it is probably the only and certainly the proper path back from systemic corruption of the current Supreme Court and the broader problem of judicial supremacy. (If this is fuzzy or if it’s unclear what I’m talking about see that earlier post.) But what that Slate discussion quickly arrived at is that to have that kind of popular constitutionalism, the ability of the people to make decisions about what the U.S. Constitution requires or forbids, you need robust and functioning political parties. And one of the key features of American politics over the last 50 years is that parties really don’t exist anymore in the sense they did for upwards of a century and a half in American politics.
