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‘They hold the cards now’: Trump allies fear Iran is slipping beyond the president’s control
(www.politico.com)
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026
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The sad thing is that even after this war decimates the US economy and leaves america as a complete laughingstock, the MAGats are going to happily vote for the next Trump.
Losing Vietnam didn't teach them anything, and neither will this fiasco.
Decimated is only 1/10th. Trump likes to use it a lot, but doesn't know what it means.
Decimated does come from the practice of killing one prisoner in ten.
And it has come to be synonymous with 'devastated.'
I was using it in the sense of 'severely maimed.' Losing a hand or a foot won't kill you but it is pretty bad.
The funny thing is that I first read the word in a spy thriller, where an agent realizes his boss has been replaced with a double when the phony misuses the word.
The orange blob has done enough dumb things to mock him for without using archaic definitions as gotchas.
You mean Trump himself? There's no chance in hell he wouldn't try to run again if he hasn't kicked the bucket by then.
It's pretty unlikely he'll make it until then and if he does die I'm not sure who will be his successor (definitely not charisma black hole JD) but if not then he's too proud to give anyone else a chance.
MTG played it pretty smart.
She retired from Congress and isn't running in November. I predict she will be omnipresent as a pundit and set herself up nicely for 2028 GOP Convention.
He has plenty of successors in waiting.
I don't think MTG has a chance, she's alienated too much of the republican party. Also, she's a woman. They never do well, especially not in the republican party.
It's the Paul Ryan gamble.
The equivalent of pulling your funds out of a market before a crash and hoping to buy back in low.
She's hoping trump goes down and then she can fill the void
Yup, both the Paul Ryan and stock market metaphors are apt.
But taking the Paul Ryan comparison to its conclusion is probably also apt - he never had the chance to buy back in low, because he didn't factor in that this particular market has no bottom. The only rational move with the GOP, ever, is to just cash out and leave forever.
I wish I thought Paul Ryan has left forever...
Ignorance is bliss and all
I still love the fact that Star Trek inadvertently gave Obama the presidency.
She's dumb enough to lead the GOP.
He could run as VP...
They're going to frame it as "See? The most powerful navy in the world is struggling, imagine how worse a threat Iran world be if Trump hadn't intervened! He's a tactical jenius!"
You might be right.
On the other hand, if enough families of upcoming casualties speak out, that might get through to the MAGA minds.
It's only going to matter to them when it's their kids or grand-kids coming home with a flag draped over them.
They already don't give a damn about veterans as is
War has traditionally been a boon to the American economy, as the US workforce is heavily integrated into the Military Industrial Complex. The surge in state spending under the Trump administration, combined with the construction boom from AI, is what's currently keeping us out of recession. And domestic oil exports only benefit when countries like Kuwait and Qatar can't export fossil fuels.
It's the Max Bialystock strategy. You win by losing. Another multi-decade long military engagement means multiple trillions of dollars invested in equipment, technology, and private contractors.
Iran, Ukraine, Venezuela, I guess Cuba is next, maybe we get to Nigeria or North Korea down the line... the wars never end and the profits never stop flowing.
The problem has been "the only other option" was neoliberal who won't help us either, but are bad liars about it.
We got a fair DNC again, we can get a FDR style Dem who actually helps people, meaning Dem turnout doesn't get depressed and the next shitty Republican doesn't get an open court layup.
That's all it takes to break that cycle. It's why neoliberals were always willing to lose a general in the primary if it meant stopping a progressive.
They never had the same goal as Dem voters, but Dem voters got the DNC back from neoliberals over a year ago.
I appreciate your optimism, but I am skeptical that anything is really changing for the DNC.
Martin ran Minnesota for a decade and the results are very easy to look into.
We're a year into the largest reinvesture from DNC to state parties. Which is important because:
The victory fund stealing that money is why we lost the House
The money going back is why we keep winning special election.
The victory fund and the legitimate threat that money would be withheld was the threat that kept neoliberala in congressional leadership.
And Martin has publicly said he wants a charismatic progressive presidential candidate, his example was Mamdani. And he said that right after his primary before he was a sure thing.
There's more going on, I'll never be blindly optimistic about anything.