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Everything dooms the Republicans in the midterms.
That's not analysis. It's barely even sarcastic. I feel like every month there's 1-2 things that DOOM REPUBLICANS IN THE MIDTERMS and then the actual polling needle barely budges.
Maybe everything is just fully too stupid for mere "events" to make anyone update.
A sudden face-heel turn on Israel is a significantly larger action than anything you've seen in the paper up until now.
Betrayal is the most difficult move to execute in a democracy, because the people who support the betrayal rarely trust you afterward. The anti-war caucus will not trust Trump after he flips on Israel, while the zionist contingent will be demoralized and may stay home.
It's not really possible to fully model something like this because it's basically never happened before. The closest I can think of is maybe LBJ on civil rights, or HW Bush on taxes? But even those weren't nearly as clear value betrayals as this would be.
I assume you mean the anti-war caucus of the Republican Party, seeing as the anti-war Dems have never trusted—and will never trust—Trump in the first place. In which case, why? Trump kept his promise of no forever wars in his first term, and for most of his second term. The recent Iran action is an aberration but so long as he doesn’t get bogged down in a quagmire, the America First anti-war types should be perfectly willing to turn a blind eye, as they have on Venezuela.
Homeboy, we're not even halfway through the second term, and we've committed to at least two acts of war (I'll spot you bombing Yemen).
Which is my point, betraying your base to appeal to your enemies by turning on Israel won't work, because your enemies won't trust you anyway.
And my point is that—as evidenced by the deafening silence around the Venezuela operation—the so-called anti-war Republicans are not actually anti-war tout court, they’re really just anti-quagmire, especially in the Middle East, à la Iraq or Afghanistan; and they’re opposed to wars (that they perceive as being) for Israel’s interests rather than America’s. The recent resignation letter of the former head of the National Counterterrorism Center encapsulates this mentality nicely.
If Trump immediately pulls out of Iran and declares “mission accomplished, American interests secured, no boots on the ground, no occupation”, that portion of his base should be willing to cut him some slack, just as they did with Venezuela, regardless of the actual merits of his claims, and of the fact that this is just another instance of TACO. Bonus points if he loudly and publicly turns on Netanyahu and accuses Israel of perfidiously trying to manipulate us into another forever war (which I think is unlikely, but supposedly Trump is aware that after the Boomers, support for Israel is cratering across the political spectrum)
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Yes, there is no way Republicans would accept a complete 180 like this. What next? Bombing Ira... oh, wait...
Big difference. Nobody likes Iran, a large contingent of American prots actively believe that supporting Israel is a religious obligation. I drive by (biblically ignorant, in my opinion) billboards reading "God blesses those who bless Israel" on a daily basis.
I suppose there's "blessed are the peacemakers" as a counter, but everyone ignores that anyway, except Pope Leo.
Also, I think Republican support for the Iran war is overstated. 80-85% of Republicans support the strikes in most polls I've seen, the equivalent numbers in Iraq were 95%+ (Lizardman range) for the first few years of the war. Losing 10-15% support from your own party is pretty bad, though it's just issue polling.
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