Trump gets bogged down in the war with Iran, reproducing past mistakes and complicating the legislative elections

The success of the MAGA movement in the last eleven years, to the point of overtaking the conservative wing, the neoliberal wing and even the populist wing of the Tea Party, is not understood from the point of complementarity, but from the frontal opposition to these movements.

For example, when they ask Steve Bannonthe great ideologue and advisor of Donald Trump during his first term, who has been the worst president in the history of the United States, does not say Joe Biden. Nor does it say Barack Obamanor does it mention Bill Clinton.

His answer is “George W. Bush“, which may shock from the Spanish bipartisan ideological perspective, but it makes perfect sense from an America First mentality.

What makes the Bushes—they don’t like their father much either—the enemy in the eyes of the populist right?

To begin with, there is an economic issue: MAGA is a movement with almost Falangist overtones, of exaltation of the worker, the peasant, the lower-middle class that lives poorly in deep America.

Bush, on the other hand, lowered taxes on the rich, gave facilities to big technology companies and, in his eyes, would be responsible for the immense economic gap between Americans.

That, from an almost theoretical point of view. Practically speaking, MAGA remembers Bush for his military interventions abroad.

Comparing the feeling in the United States regarding Iraq and Afghanistan with what happened in the seventies and eighties regarding Vietnam may be saying a lot, but it is not that far off either.

America First is America First, no adventures or elephantine expenses on the other side of the world to sustain endless wars that do not benefit the average American and also have to be financed with their taxes.

The problem of coffins

With his intervention in Iran, Trump has triggered all these traumas.

The idea of ​​a prolonged war in the Middle East, with the possibility of sending troops to change the current regime and the risk that American soldiers assigned to the different bases in the area end up suffering terrorist attacks or bombings from Tehran, not only horrifies supporters of the Democratic Party, but practically the entire MAGA movement.

own Tucker Carlsonperhaps the most important media speaker of what is called “Trumpism” has been blaming Israel for everything that is happening for weeks and crying out against US intervention.

His position collides, ironically, with that of John Boltonformer National Security Advisor during the first Trump Administration, and a clear representative of the conservative sector of the Republican Party.

Trump loves Carlson and hates Bolton, but nevertheless, he has ended up doing what the latter has been asking for at least since the Obama years.

That implies an enormous risk and the White House knows it: the spokesperson Caroline Leavitt had a bitter confrontation last Wednesday with the prestigious CNN journalist, Kaitlan Collinsfor the treatment that his network was giving to the operation in Iran and, especially, the death of six US soldiers in different bombings on US bases and installations in the Middle East.

Leavitt understood that the press should only talk about how well everything is going and not focus on the negative. It is the same position that defends Pete HegsethSecretary of Defense, and who also had a dialectical scuffle with Collins at a press conference.

Trump, with some disdain, limited himself to stating that there would be deaths, of course, because in every war there are deaths, perhaps even within the United States itself.

Poor communication

The point is that every death is a punch in the gut for this Administration.

Trump was voted in, among other things, to avoid this type of interventionist drift. The vice president JD Vance He is convinced of isolationism, something that the Secretary of State and current National Security Advisor, Marco Rubio, certainly is not.

Both will probably compete for the Republican Party candidacy in the 2028 presidential elections.

This clash of personalities and sensitivities could cost the GOP dearly in the coming years. midtermshence an extra effort is being made to flood the media with hyperbole to escape from the real debate about what the objective of the war in Iran is.

Trump has refused to explain himself to Congress—a Congress that, in turn, has made a very sad dereliction of duty by renouncing its duty to hold the president accountable for such an important decision—and has not considered it necessary to publicly address the nation, beyond a couple of videos recorded at Mar-a-Lago and broadcast on social networks.

Trump and his entourage, therefore, ask for faith because it is basically what has worked for them so far, but that faith will depend on how many coffins return home wrapped in a flag… and on people understanding why.

In that sense, the communication problem is enormous: no one has quite explained why the United States is attacking Iran and, above all, why a long operation of months is now being proposed instead of a few days or, at most, three or four weeks.

Of the Midnight Hammer to the epic fury

Few people protested in the United States against the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001-2002 because 9/11 was too recent and finding Osama Bin Laden It was an absolute priority.

The Iraq war caused more doubts, but, again, it was understood that there was a potential threat and, in any case, the Bush Administration had approval ratings that allowed it to take the risk without giving too many explanations or blatantly lying when it did.

This is not the case with Trump.

His approval is at a minimum: since World War II, only he himself, in his first term, has been more publicly questioned.

Besides, no one knows what he is looking for in Iran. Last June, after the operation Midnight Hammerclaimed that the nuclear program had been “annihilated” without providing any evidence, challenging anyone who claimed otherwise.

Just a few months later, it turned out that this nuclear program that was initially no longer operational was once again a threat.

Hence the negotiations in Doha and Geneva, to which he sent, as always, two negotiators inexperienced in these issues as Steve Witkoff y Jared Kushner.

What seemed to focus on Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon has now become something else: the need for regime change… and for that new regime to be mentored by Trump himself, something practically impossible without a ground invasion.

Towards a Democratic Congress?

The nuclear threat is easy to understand, but the regime change part is not supported by the aforementioned John Bolton. It’s not that he likes the current one, far from it, but he understands that Iranians must choose their government and, above all, that the further the United States is from “administering” Middle Eastern countries as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan, the better for the Americans themselves.

It also doesn’t help that every cabinet secretary, advisor, personal friend, etc. go to the media to give your opinion on the matter.

The fact that Trump is neither able to explain his strategy nor to specify the risks that the intervention poses for his citizens and that he treats the possible deaths of Americans as “perhaps of the job” is not going to help improve his image.

Heading into November, everyone assumes that Democrats will regain control of the House of Representatives, but if things get really bad, they could even win the Senate.

That, obviously, in the event that there are elections and that they are not manipulated from the White House.

There are legitimate doubts about this because Trump himself has threatened to do so. There are also questions about what use Trump would make of that Congress if he finally accepted defeat, something he is not very accustomed to.

You only have to see the contempt with which he treats the current one to imagine what role he would relegate to the future, although there is no doubt that at least the new one would not resign himself to being a mere silent appendage of the presidency.