Top Trump officials said their strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites were limited, but they don’t have much control over the knock-on effects in the Middle East and their party.
Donald Trump’s top national security officials spent much of Sunday insisting his administration doesn’t want to bring about the end of Iran’s government, only its nuclear program. Then Trump left the door open for exactly that.
“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
While Trump did not call for the ouster of the regime, or say that the U.S. would play any role in overthrowing the Iranian government, his words undercut what had appeared to be a coordinated message from his top advisers. JD Vance, Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth each insisted Sunday that the U.S. was only interested in dismantling Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
I’m definitely pessimistic about all of this as well. I think we’re on the same page on a lot of things, or at least in the same chapter. The tearing down is absolutely an issue, and one I am afraid is never going to be solved. I think some of that stems from the fact that the democratic party is comprised of two groups that really don’t want the same thing. So while they both agree that they are against what the conservatives are doing, they are constantly taking potshots at each other.
This gets exacerbated by the fact that the upper levels of the DNC are fully removed from even the liberal side of the party, and are fully captured by the moneyed interests. This means that while the Republican party can move forward as a monolith, on the other side you never get a true fortified position on anything. Which is further degraded because there are always enough captured dems to reach across the aisle when it serves the moneyed interests. This also works the other way, and stops any real progressive momentum so that even if the left succeeds, they will be hamstrung by their own party. Look for this to happen to Zoran Mamdani if NYC succeeds in electing him.
It all gets amplified by the media, who are fully corporate here. Kind of going back to your point in the first post about liberals also being an echo chamber, I definitely see it as well. You’ll get your ‘watch this space’ folks who fall into the same trap, an example to me is all this TACO nonsense. He doesn’t chicken out, he’s a bullshitter and there is a huge difference. And when you call a narcissist a chicken while he’s deciding whether or not he should start an international conflict for now reason, well maybe you are part of the problem. (Obviously not you haha, just the general ‘you’). I do believe that this group is a big reason we can’t have nice things though, because they are also the one’s who will see that Bill Clinton endorsed Cuomo and somehow thing all of that is a good thing.
As for the ‘joe rogan of the left’ I keep hearing about, that’s a pass for me. My problem with him is not that he is conservative. It’s that he is a piece of shit that will push anything to make a dollar. And the money will absolutely pay a POS to spread their propaganda. Anyone on the left doing so will absolutely fall into that trap, it just may take longer for everyone to catch on. And to get to that level of market saturation, you absolutely need the money to be pushing you.
So, where do we go from here? Personally, I’m a doomer. I do my best not to tear things down or spread ‘thought-terminating cliches’ when all of this horror shows up, but I honestly don’t see a way forward from this. More and more I’m coming to realize this is what people want. Obviously not all of them, but like with the brainwashing thing, these people are doing it to themselves. While options may be limited, no one is actually forcing anyone to consume all of this. So why do we do it? (Hopefully all of that didn’t bounce around too much)