I do not think this Admin has the chops to achieve authoritarian consolidation, in part because that would be *harder* than bombing Iran and keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, which they have demonstrated is above their skill level, but the damage is growing more immense and radicalizing by the day.
But I will note, part of Touching the Stove and "I do not regret to inform you that we will win" thought has been that the more Trump does damage above what people thought the upper bound was, the more people are radicalized into the Fight axis, which is what keeps happening on every issue.
I think this has a lot of overlap with the Fight/Appease dichotomy. Anyone who thought there was no upper bound to the damage Trump could do not just to the US but to the world has no patience for "waiting him out" because *gestures vaguely*; anyone who thought there was an upper bound, *shrugs*.
It’s crystal clear now that Trump has lost control of this war. He badly misjudged Iran’s ability to retaliate. The region is on fire.
1/ I’m going to explain to you in this🧵what I’ve learned - in part from closed door briefings - about the four biggest current crises.
Which, again not as a defense of these guys, isn't even optimistic so much as necessary to prevent us all being seized with anxiety at the idea of people this destructive being in charge without Adults in the Room, AKA they are just now getting to where a lot of us have been since November, 2024.
As a general rule, the assumption seems to have been "a serious closure would blow up multiple modern economies, and there is a Cabal of Adults somewhere who wouldn't let that happen, because the damage is too high to even plan contingencies for," AKA people are unable to even comprehend Trumpism.
I am struck with fear that I can read neither charts nor sentences upon seeing this, lmao.
Looks like it according to the little descriptive blurb at the top of the chart.
The GOP now has their own version of the TACO trade problem, where the complete non-reaction to things like illegal tariffs and the illegal Venezuela operation directly led to Trump thinking something like a sudden attack on Iran could do him no harm, and now they can't undo the damage they allowed.
Step 1: Furries
Step 2: *suspiciously oil tanker-shaped bulge in stomach*
Step 3: Furry convention with ipecac spiked food
I'm pretty sure that was because line went down and Trump wants to make sure that for line, it can only up happen.
It's hard to internalize the fact that the administration really does believe the Iraq war was "woke" and that they would be able to easily defeat a substantially more powerful nation simply by being based chads
Coordinating the needs of a diverse group of stakeholders and getting everyone to play nice is Woman Work (low value) but forging ahead alone by being a powerful virtuoso who's a "10x coder" and doesn't care about what the client needs the code to actually accomplish is Man Work (laudatory).
Let's say, for a moment, that he plans to TACO.
How does he even vaguely do so in a way that resolves the issues he's hoping to TACO away from? He can't actually back away from this conflict in a way that re-opens the Straight of Hormuz or puts the genie of "New Middle East War" back in the bottle.
logging in each day to excitedly find out if we’ve finally fucking touched the stove hard enough for ANYONE TO GIVE A FUCKING SHIT AT ALL IN ANY WAY OR CHANGE THEIR GODDAMN BEHAVIOR
I live in eternal hope but unfortunately that’s indistinguishable from eternal wrath
The problem with the TACO trade has always been that Trump is too stupid to know some bells cannot be unrung, and this seems likely one of them.
The worst part is that if you read the Federalist Papers and other contemporary writings, the Founding Fathers were very much concerned that "someone will at some point ever," but there's no real way to design a system around "never let a bad man get in charge of a major sociopolitical force."
The housing shortage is 100% real, but only in urban areas full of cosmopolitans who don't count as "Real Americans" and thus it is not a Real American problem.
The 401k contributions and "just buy index funds" will continue, up until deteriorating employment and the need to cover losses in spaces like private equity tips over a hard-to-define boundary.
New ADP Payroll report is supposedly good news, but then you dig into it and it's the same thing as the last several months:
-58,000/63,000 jobs gained were in healthcare (because old people)
-Manufacturing lost jobs
-Business services, the actual engine of our economy, -30,000
CNN article excerpt noting Target made strategy mistakes by scaling back Pride displays and rolling back DEI initiatives, angering liberal customers.
But they did, albeit shortly.
The fact that the U.S. has been so successfully brainwashed into thinking that sunburned white guys with cheeky Nazi tattoos Define the Working Class when the ACTUAL working class is non-white women (many of them immigrants) - yeah, that’s one of the great madness runes of our time.
"Congress" isn't the
issue, Republicans in Congress are.
As many of us said at the time, part of the reason the Venezuelan operation was bad was because it gave the appearances of a military success despite accomplishing nothing, which would embolden the next, dumber plan.
As is always the deal with fascists, alas.
And this kind of falls apart if what they end up hearing is "and that's why gas prices will go up" or "and 20 American soldiers are dead while Iran gloats about it."
Which is to say, a sudden victory you can sell to Median Voters is actually hard to pull off where they thought it would be easy.
To expand on this, I think the Admin's plan is to bomb Iran a bunch over the weekend, and declare victory regardless before the non-politically-engaged people hear about it, so they hear "Trump's big manly warfighters beat them; don't worry about it, kitten."
But increasingly the "Big Things" that Trump is being egged into doing involve actually invading other countries, killing people, and seizing territory, and eventually it does seem inevitable he will start something he can neither conclude nor walk back.
Even if we assume the plan is however-many days of bombings then declare Mission Accomplished before anyone tunes in, what happens if the Straight of Hormuz is still closed or US Servicemembers get killed by a Shahed drone and the Iranian regime doesn't poof out of existence?
I'm less worried everyone will be mad we attacked Iran and more worried that this Admin has considered 0 of the after-effect consequences, which will be where the real pain lies.
Any plan for the closure of the Straight of Hormuz? Shahed drone attacks killing US servicemembers? Iranian Civil War?
Though, it does leave them open to the problem of what happens of Iran actually managed to kill any significant number of US service members with something like Shahed drones?
