Right-wing supporters of President Trump’s war against Iran have pivoted from bragging about low gas prices to saying that the high prices caused by the conflict are a small price to pay to liberate the people of Iran (assuming this war can do that). Will voters buy that pitch this fall?
Gas Menu, Trump Edition
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The TMI Show" talk show. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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A long time ago, someone wrote a post about Arnold Schwarzenegger. It went something like: Here’s a guy who doesn’t have any particular advantages. He doesn’t know “the right people.” He goes out, becomes one of the best-known weightlifters in the country. Then, with a name no one can spell, he becomes one of the most successful actors in America. Then he gets into politics and becomes the governor of a U.S. state with a $4 trillion (with a T, like Terminator) GDP (the fourth largest in the whole world). Oh, and he marries a Kennedy, which is the closest the U.S. has to marrying into royalty.
Let’s look at Trump. He entered the Republican primary almost as a joke attempt to remain relevant when “The Apprentice” was winding down and won eight of the first 10 primaries: eight firsts, one second, and one third place. He wiped out Jeb Bush’s political career. He ended Hillary Clinton as a political force. He destroyed two political families in a single political cycle. He turned the White House into an ATM and used the presidency to pull in over $3 billion (at least that’s the figure I recall from The New Yorker) for himself and his family. He has completely rewritten American politics. He has committed more career-ending moves than Reagan and Dubya combined and STILL survived. He was the president for the return to the moon and will be (barring a blood clot or a flight of stairs) for the semiquincentennial. AND he tore down the East Wing of the White House. And let’s not forget the THREE Supreme Court justices he’s appointed (so far) or how one of the oldest Baby Boomers in the world took total ownership of the SocMed space. Whenever he tweets anything, it gets reported like its news.
Gas prices won’t be “the issue” in 2028. “Trump” will be the issue in 2028. The Republicans have a bunch of no ones. The democrats? Thanks to their own in-fighting and idiocy, there’s no one there either. The whole campaign will be the Republicans running someone who is “the political son of Donald Trump,” and the democrats giving weak-as-water excuses for why they can’t prosecute Trump or his gang. “We need to move forward.”
The only liberation from which the Iranian people are in need are the economic sanctions imposed on them, for more or less 47 years continuously, by the US which is currently bombing their schools, hospitals, bridges and has threatened much more war crimes of civilian infrastructure destruction … if they don’t soon realize who, exactly, is their REAL enemy and overthrow it. To help them in this decision Trump has said, in effect: “These are horrible people. I want to destroy their civilization.”
Note the Lancet Journal has revealed: “Economic sanctions imposed by the USA or the EU were associated with 564,258 deaths ANNUALLY from 1971 to 2021, higher than the annual number of battle-related casualties (106 000 deaths).” Note the number of US and European sanctions have taken a quantum leap since 2021.
Source: The Lancet Global Health @ https://tinyurl.com/44ax5v9v