President Donald Trump’s decision to start a conflict in Iran could make the bottom fall out for the Republican Party in this year’s midterm elections.
The party was already in for a world of hurt going into November's elections. Voters are angry that Trump hasn't made good on his promise to lower prices domestically. And now neither he nor his Cabinet officials have been able to articulate a coherent justification for attacking Iran.
From the jump, the attacks are overwhelmingly unpopular with Americans. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Sunday finds that just 27% of Americans support the strikes that Trump ordered over the weekend. That includes just 55% of Republicans, who rarely say they disapprove of their Dear Leader's policies.
Those are especially bad numbers given that the start of a conflict is often when it is most popular. For instance, former President George W. Bush's quagmire in Iraq, which was based on lies, started out with 74% of Americans saying the invasion was the "right decision."
Approval of the Iran conflict is unlikely to grow, as well. Americans are likely to sour on the conflict as they see chaos and death unfold. And none of Trump or his Cabinet's explanations for the attacks make sense. Trump barely explained his reasoning after the strikes had already been carried out, posting a bizarre pre-taped speech on his Truth Social page. In the speech, he sounded like Lord Farquaad from “Shrek” when he said, “The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war.”
The conflict is also a betrayal of his promise to his base to be "America first."
Multiple times on the 2024 campaign trail he promised there would be no new wars if he were to take office again—a pledge he's repeatedly betrayed through his military strikes in Venezuela, the Caribbean Sea, and Iran's supposed nuclear facilities.
But now that he's starting what is expected to be a prolonged conflict—which Trump has said could go on for weeks and that will likely cause more troops to die—this conflict is likely to be the most stinging betrayal of that promise yet.
Just take a look at how former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a onetime die-hard Trump supporter, reacted to the Iran strikes.
"We, as in YOU and me, campaigned on America First. And this is NOT it," she wrote in a post on X.
A state TV communications tower and building destroyed Sunday during a strike as part of the ongoing joint U.S.–Israeli military campaign are seen in Tehran, Iran, on March 2.
In another post on X on Sunday, she tagged Vice President JD Vance and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, writing, “You both know this is not what we campaigned for and this is 100% what we said would not happen. We said, I said, you said: NO MORE FOREIGN WARS AND NO MORE REGIME CHANGE. All we wanted was America FIRST. This is not it.”
If Trump's MAGA base stays home in November, Republicans will be fucked.
Even worse for the GOP is that the conflict is already spiking gas prices, a cost of living that Trump has bragged about bringing down. Aside from a rise in gas prices hurting people who need to fill up their cars, it’s also raising the price of diesel, which could increase trucking costs and have downstream effects on the price of other goods.
With cost of living and inflation being the most important issue for Americans, spiking gas prices for an unpopular conflict could send Republicans' midterm chances off a cliff.
This conflict was immediately a mess. Four troops died during the initial strikes, U.S. fighter jets are being shot out of the sky in friendly-fire attacks, and the stock market is falling as investors fear the economic impacts of this nonsensical conflict.
If this thing drags on, not only will it be a horrific situation for the Middle East and the rest of the world, but it will also cost the GOP their power in Washington. Good.
