1. Idiocracy
The Trump regime’s planning and execution of its war in Iran has been almost laughably incompetent. The commander-in-chief and his team seem to not have understood how maritime insurance works, or taken into account the relative economics of drone attacks vs. missile defense, or understood Iran’s Mosaic Defense doctrine.
We are witnessing the military version of Trump’s COVID response: The president says crazy, demonstrably untrue things every day1 while his administration fails at the basic blocking and tackling of government.2
A conventional wisdom is forming which believes that the Iran war and its resultant strategic and economic failures will significantly damage Trump.
This conventional wisdom should be true. I want it to be true. But I’m going to share a counter view: Throughout his political career, Donald Trump has created chaos at every turn. And for the most part, he has thrived on it.
He has not pulled it off every time he has reached a crisis point. But more often than not, he has figured out how to turn manufactured chaos to his advantage.
To believe that Trump will be damaged by high gas prices and an unpopular war, you’ve got to assume that we are still competing in a free and fair democratic system.
But what if we are partway through the transition to a post-democratic system? In that scenario, couldn’t the chaos of the Iran war be useful for Trump’s post-liberal project?
This one goes to four . . .