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Right now the war is "unpopular" because the mainstream media is spinning it 24/7 as some sort of unwinnable quagmire, and people are afraid of getting trapped in another Afghanistan type situation. But if he actually wins the war, then it will suddenly be a lot less unpopular. Winning doesn't necessarily have to be a formal regime change, just some sort of obvious symbol of progress, like floating a big convey through the Strait of Hormuz.
But on a broader level, if Republicans lose in the midterms... so what? Trump is a lame duck president and an elderly man, of course he's going to lose popularity. The purpose of winning elections is to do things, you're not trying to do things just to win elections! Trump will still be commander in chief, with wide powers to fight the war as he sees fit. The democrats in Congress can complain, but all they can really do is set budgets.
The war is unpopular because Trump is incompetent and just did it instead of making the case to the American public. So that is 100% on him. The media hates Trump so he has to take that into account when waging an unnecessary war. Of course, he didn't because he thought it would be a short war (was wrong) and here we are.
And yes the point of winning elections is to do stuff. But you want to do stuff that is actually a good idea and leads to your side winning and getting more of what you want. Not sure how spending all your political capital on an Iran War helps there. If he wanted to do something that is unpopular but has to be done, cutting entitlements or the debt would be a good place to start instead of another war.
That's not actually a thing that the president can do though. He doesn't have the power to decide budgets. He does have the power to fight wars. Obama did the same thing in his second term, he mostly gave up on trying to fix healthcare and just spent his time handling drone strikes across the middle east. But it's another reason why losing midterm elections isn't the end of the world... if Democrats win Congress, then it's on them to do the unpopular stuff and cut spending.
In fact the president does not have the power to declare war, so if he's going to do things he doesn't have the power to do maybe he should do things that are actually useful.
Semantics. Legal precedent since Vietnam has given the president wide ranging power to use the military without an official declaration of war. Maybe that's not how the founders intended it, but that's what we've got. But he really, really doesn't have the power to re-make medicare and social security into whatever he wants, that's just college student naivete to think that a president has that kind of power.
"The president's powers aren't bound by the constitution in this area because a previous president broke the rules, but in all the other areas the president has to follow the rules."
I don't know that this is what they call a "stable equilibrium".
Custom and prescription have long been a part of constitutional law; both with formal and informal constitutions.
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He is the head of the Republican Party and can whip Senate and House into doing this or at least actually attempt to. Or build the wall or long term immigration reform or anything that will help this country long term (things he ran on). Democrats will also never cut entitlements their winning issue is MORE healthcare, entitlements, etc. Trump officials also have another reason to win the midterms and the White House and that’s to not go to prison. Which honestly I hope happens because maybe they will see how serious this is instead of fucking around grifting billions and renaming stuff.
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In some sense it may be better for Trump['s project] to be unpopular due to the war than something like immigration enforcement. If you think that some degree of unpopularity was baked in, the unpopularity of the war is something that the administration can to some degree steer (and also that future Republican nominees can more easily disavow).
It could be copium but I would buy that Iran is working as 5d chess to distract the population from negative newsbites about immigration enforcement. Few people are talking about ice on college campuses or rioting outside federal facilities. Instead normies have turned to armchair experts in drone warfare and oil markets
I don't think Iran was done as a 5D chess move to distract from negative immigration news bites, but I wouldn't be surprised if, now that it is kicked off, the Trump administration (or at least some factions within it) aren't (contra what you would expect from Reading The News) desperate to end it in any rush exactly because it is generating narrative top cover as you describe.
I also do think that the blockade will continue to pay off over the long run and the admin is probably in less of a rush to "win the war" than one might imagine for that reason as well.
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