THIS WAR IS NOT GOING WELL FOR TRUMP
Bill Kristol’s recent post in The Bulwark has an excellent summary of how bad this war is becoming for Trump.
- The Iranian regime is surviving.
- The Strait of Hormuz remains closed—except to those ships the Iranians want to allow to go through, delivering Iranian oil to their allies.
- Global energy prices continue to rise and stock markets continue to fall. Inflation is ticking up and the Fed looks more likely to raise than cut interest rates in the near future.
- Iran’s military capabilities aren’t as degraded as we thought. In fact, Iran’s missile and drone launches, which had been declining in number over the first two weeks, have increased this week.
- Some of those missiles and drones are hitting their targets: After Israel attacked Iran’s South Pars gas field yesterday in a strike you pretended we didn’t know about ahead of time, Iran retaliated by hitting Qatar’s Ras Laffan terminal, the world’s largest liquefied natural gas facility.
- As the Economist put it yesterday, “Although President Donald Trump says he has ‘destroyed 100% of Iran’s Military Capability’, the 0% that remains is playing havoc with the global economy.”
- We’re facing a decision about deploying thousands of ground troops to try either to secure the Strait of Hormuz or to seize Kargh Island—and neither operation is assured of success.
- The Defense Department says we need to go to Congress for a supplemental appropriation—as much as $200 billion—to pay for the war and replenishing stocks, and it’s not clear the votes are there to approve the funds.
- Meanwhile, our allies abroad aren’t rallying to us.
- And there’s no sign that the American public is rallying to the administration either.
TRUMP MIGHT WANT THIS WAR TO END BUT IRAN AND ISRAEL MUST AGREE
We are about to experience the pain of higher gas prices, our farmers won’t have fertilizer to grow their crops, a rising cost of this war that will create even more national debt, and the growing loss of American lives. The Republicans thought their midterm chances were bad before Trump started this war, but they are getting worse every day. Trump has every reason to want to end this war as fast as possible. But he is not the only one who has a say in whether and when the war ends.
Iran does not want this war to end because it can and is effectively using asymetrical warfare to punish Trump and the rest of the world economically for this attack. As long as there is a way for one Iranian to lob a bomb at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, the world will not be able to count on safe passage in the strait that is a chokehold on commerce. Even if Trump tries to walk away from the war that he and Bibi started, he will get pulled back in to try to end what looks to be a rapidly expanding battlefield.
Knowing Trump by now as we do, we know his reaction to a growing problem is to attack more, be more “bold” and apply brute force to get his way and then if things go south, he bails (TACO). I expect that he will escalate by bringing in more Marines first as a threat or a gamble. He will at least threaten to take over Kargh Island and coastal ports to get the strait open. This will take us deeper into this mess of his own making and create more havoc.
He might also escalate by sending a bunch of American special ops teams to run around Iran trying to ferret out all the places where their (not fully obliterated!) enriched uranium might be hidden. Good luck with that, sports fans. All of this will expose Americans to harm in a war that makes no sense to most of us. The MAGA base is splitting over the Iran war with influencers like Megan Kelly and Candace Owens expressing rage about it. The split MAGA base is joining once again with Democrats! like they did over Epstein. Who would have guessed. But they agree on this basic idea: How is another Middle East war putting Americans First?
Iran is not the only party to this war that wants it to continue. Israel wants this war to keep going. Israel is hell bent on destroying all of its neighbors for once and for all who want to eradicate them. Netanyahu seems to think that attacking pockets of enemies in Lebanon will somehow lead to a lasting peace. Trump, they think, is their best chance to get to freely annilhilate their enemies. Netanyahu is a lot like Trump. He pretends he is agreeing and then does whatever he wants to do.
This war will demolish what was an uneasy but potentially growing peace in the Middle East region based on global business prospects where Dubai and Abu Dhabi were new, safe business centers and replace it with a continuing war that will be impossible to quell unless all three countries- the US, Israel and Iran can come to a ceasefire agreement. A tall order.
THIS WAR IS ANOTHER BIG FAILURE FOR TRUMP
When Trump ran for a second term he made a number of promises. He was going to expose the elites in the Epstein files, lower costs for American consumers, and stop getting us into wars in the Middle East. Instead, we got an Epstein cover up with a complicit DOJ that continues to protect Trump and other elites, tariffs that caused prices to rise at your grocery store even before this war began, and another friggin war in the Middle East that is raising prices at the gas pump, raising airfares, and making it next to impossible for farmers to get fertilizer for their crops. Farmers are getting so beaten up by this administration, Iowa is likely to elect a Democrat, Rob Sand, as its next governor. (By-the-way, I have met him and he is a really cool younger guy and ready-on-day one to be governor!)
To lower gas prices guess what! Trump has decided to remove sanctions on Russian oil and Iranian oil!! That’s the same Russia that is giving information to Iran about how to target and kill American servicemembers. What Trump’s doing is like rewarding our worst enemy for punching us in the nose.
Trump is not making America Great Again, he is making Russia great again and Iran might just be getting some great benefits too. Iran is learning that it has power over global commerce by controlling the Strait of Hormuz and its thinking about taking control of other straits if they don’t get what they want. Of course that will prompt Trump to send troops on the ground and in the sea. Stay tuned.
TRUMP’S WRECKAGE CREATES FALL OUT FOR OTHERS
Instead of making America great again, Trump has made America hated and more isolated in the world. Our allies are being pulled into a war they weren’t even consulted about and did not want. This is after Trump denigrated our allies and slapped tariffs on them.
Our former allies don’t trust TACO Trump for good reason, and, so far, refuse to help him reopen the Strait of Hormuz by risking their ships and sailors in an uncertain, poorly thought out enterprise, a war of Trump’s own making in collusion with Bibi Netanyahu that is causing global economic havoc.
WE ARE PAYING THE PRICE FOR ELECTING TRUMP
Trump has made Americans poorer, sicker and more worried about their futures. His early DOGE move decimated many government agencies and perverted the mission of the Dept of Justice, turning it into his wholly owned subsidiary of Trump INC, HIS law firm serving HIS own interests.
He put RFK Jr in charge of Health and Human Services, turning that agency into a one stop shop for junk science instead of reliance on verifiable data-based science and facts. Obamacare was dismantled by making it too expensive. Medicaid funding curtailment has forced the closure of many rural and inner city hospitals without providing an alternative. These bad outcomes are just starting to be felt by Americans as we enter the second year of Trump’s second term.
MIDTERMS
So, what does this mean for the midterms?
It means that the only way Republicans will keep the House is to cheat to “win” and if Trump can’t end the war soon, the Senate is also in play.
That’s why Trump is pushing the so-called SAVE Act. What is the SAVE Act trying to save, you ask? Trump’s ass, that’s what.
THE SAVE TRUMP’S ASS ACT
As the Brennan Center reports, there are a number of iterations of the SAVE Act but they are all awful for free and fair elections. A strong constitutional democracy should encourage the greatest number of voters to go to the polls and get to vote:
In every form, the SAVE Act would require American citizens to show documents like a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. Our research shows that more than 21 million Americans lack ready access to those documents. Roughly half of Americans don’t even have a passport. Millions lack access to a paper copy of their birth certificate. The SAVE Act would disenfranchise Americans of all ages and races, but younger voters and voters of color would suffer disproportionately. Likewise, millions of women whose married names aren’t on their birth certificates or passports would face extra steps just to make their voices heard.
Just like the SAVE Act of 2025, the new SAVE Act proposals would inject chaos into election administration. They would place a massive unfunded burden on state and local election officials. And they would expose those officials to significant legal risk. The bills would leave it up to local officials to decide whether a voter who lacks one of the specified documents has done enough to prove citizenship. Officials who make an honest mistake could face civil and criminal penalties. An election official could even be punished for registering an eligible American citizen, just for failing to collect all the right paperwork at the right time.
The new versions of the SAVE Act would go into effect either immediately after enactment, or within the next year or two, depending on the specific provision. Such a rushed implementation of massive policy changes would wreak havoc on election administration, unleashing confusion that will itself undoubtedly prevent some American citizens from voting.
Though all versions of the SAVE Act would block millions of American citizens from voting, the new bills each contain unique additional obstacles. One new SAVE Act bill, the SAVE America Act, directs states to hand their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security to run through the agency’s flawed citizenship verification tool (confusingly named the SAVE program).
If the federal government (through this SAVE Program) ever gets oversight control over our election system by getting its hands on state voter rolls and having enforcement authority, our democracy will be on life support. We cannot let that happen.
The SAVE Act is bad enough. It will keep people who don’t like Trump and his policies from getting to vote: namely, young men and young women, people of color, and married women.
If the Republicans keep the House and Senate, Trump will not face accountability in his last 2 years in office. He can keep on grifting. He’s already corruptly amassed 1.4 to 3 billion dollars. But that’s small potatoes compared to what he could get for himself if his loyal minions stay in power in Congress for the next 3 years.
That’s why the SAVE Act and SAVE Program should be renamed the Save Trump’s Ass Acts.
STRAIT JACKET
Meanwhile, the Trump/Bibi war continues. Iran is shaking down other countries that want to uses the Strait of Hormuz, forcing ships to pay millions in protection money to get through the chokehold that is preventing regular commerce.
Roughly 2,000 to over 3,000 ships are reportedly trapped or idling in the Persian Gulf, unable to safely navigate the Strait of Hormuz due to escalating regional conflicts, notes International Maritime Organization (IMO) data from SCMP and gCaptain. Daily traffic has plunged from roughly 100-130 ships to only 3-5, leaving hundreds of tankers and cargo vessels stranded.
Iran is using its geographical advantage as a weapon of war by putting the rest of the world in a kind of economic “straitjacket” unless the world accedes to its wishes.
As of March 21, 2026, Iran has threatened to destabilize the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, according to reports from Iranian state-affiliated media, as a retaliatory option against potential U.S. strikes on its energy infrastructure. While Iranian forces have primarily targeted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, this signals an expansion of potential maritime threats.
The only way out of these messes created by Trump is to elect Democrats and vote out all of the Republicans up and down the ballot in 2026. Dems need to take back the House and Senate. And then…how about Mark Kelly for president in 2028?
By-the-way, don’t forget to sign up for the next No Kings March on March 28th. These rallies are important and effective. The “3.5% rule” is a political science concept developed by Harvard professor Erica Chenoweth, which tells us that if 3.5% of a population actively participates in sustained, nonviolent protest, they have never failed to bring about political change. In the U.S., this represents approximately 12 million people. Just google Indivisible to find a march near you.