“It used to be so much easier to sell a war of choice. Bill Clinton mobilized troops for NATO’s mission to bomb Yugoslavia, and around three in five Americans approved. George W. Bush announced Operation Iraqi Freedom; more than 70% of adults went along with it. Americans were war-wearier in 2011, after electing the only presidential candidate who’d promised to get out of Iraq. But half of them heard Barack Obama endorse a no-fly zone over Libya and said: Why not? Operation Epic Fury doesn’t get that benefit of the doubt. If you’re old enough to remember the Iraq War build-up, a year-long sales job that it became ‘unpatriotic’ to question, the lack of any real presidential persuasion effort has been surreal.” (03/04/26)
“If J. D. Vance promised one thing during the 2024 presidential campaign, it was that America would not enter into a war with Iran of the kind that is currently raging. ‘America doesn’t have to constantly police every region of the world,’ Vance told the comedian Tim Dillon on his podcast. … These arguments look farcical now that President Trump has chosen—months after bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities and pronouncing its enrichment efforts ‘completely and totally obliterated’—to join Israel in launching a war on the Islamic Republic. … Vance entered the White House as a man full of ideas—about a more modest place for the United States in world affairs; a new, worker-friendly version of Republican economics; and aggressive, Teddy Roosevelt–style regulation of Big Business. Yet Iran is just the latest example of a noticeable trend: Within the Trump administration, Vance’s opinions seem to matter less and less.” (03/05/26)
“The deal, first negotiated between the Biden team and Anthropic, included two usage restrictions. First, Claude could not be used for mass surveillance of Americans. Second, Claude could not be used to control lethal autonomous weapons, which are weapons that can identify, track, and kill targets with no human in the loop at any point in the process. When it negotiated the expanded deal, the Trump administration had the opportunity to review these terms. It did, and it accepted them. Trump officials claim to have changed their mind not so much because they want to do mass surveillance on Americans or use autonomous lethal weapons imminently, but because they object altogether to the notion of privately imposed limitations on the military’s use of technology.” (03/04/26)
“At 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, President Trump posted a home video announcing that he was declaring war on Iran. Many Americans were shocked at the news in part because the Constitution requires congressional approval for taking the nation to war. In the weeks before the attack, the Pentagon press office helped distract public attention by promoting exercise videos. In his State of the Union speech last week, President Trump proclaimed: ‘Our military is stacked!’ Exhibit A for ‘stacked’ is a new video showing Secretary of War Pete Hegseth reportedly bench-pressing 315 pounds. Hegseth is the type of lifter who keeps grunting long after he finishes a lift. … I quipped on Facebook: ‘I bench-pressed that much when I was in high school. Guys past the age of 30 who fixate on their bench press totals tend to avoid mental heavy lifting.’ Hell hath no fury like hypersensitive weightlifters.” (03/04/26)
“Institutions and professors have mastered the language and posture of open inquiry without necessarily creating the conditions for it. A syllabus can promise a brave space while the actual classroom — with its particular mix of students, social pressures, and unspoken hierarchies — remains anything but. What Gallup is measuring, at best, is the invitation. What it cannot measure is whether the conditions exist for anyone to accept it.” (03/04/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by W James Antle III
“Twitter, or X, did not exist when the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003. But a quick perusal of the popular social media website in the 48 hours following the latest U.S. bombing campaign in Iran was like opening a time capsule from 23 years ago and watching all the hawkish talking points spill out. Not long ago, it seemed as if the failure of the Iraq War had become a rare point of bipartisan consensus in our age of deeply polarized politics. The improbable leader who helped forge that consensus — or, perhaps more accurately, encouraged Republicans finally to join it — was Donald Trump.” (03/04/26)
“In response to his sentencing following his conviction on 34 felonies in May 2024, President Trump stated that he had ‘won the election in a massive landslide, and the people of this country understand what’s gone on. This has been a weaponization of government.’ Despite his conviction, Judge Juan Merchan sentenced him to an unconditional discharge with no consequences like prison, probation, or even fines. The judge determined that this was ‘the only lawful sentence’ that avoided infringing on the authority of the presidency. Had that been Donald Trump’s first encounter with the law (which, of course, it wasn’t), it would have been a stark lesson in impunity. It’s no surprise then that, in an interview last year with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press, when asked about his obligation to uphold the Constitution, Trump responded, ‘I don’t know.'” (03/05/26)
“If Secretary of State Marco Rubio is to be believed, Israel basically buffaloed the Trump administration into starting a war with Iran. ‘We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,’ he told reporters recently. ‘Obviously, we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us, and we had to be prepared to act as a result of it.’ That doesn’t excuse Trump’s decision, of course, but it is a plausible read of the situation. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu basically said as much: ‘This coalition of forces allows us to do what I have yearned to do for 40 years.’ And as I have previously written, only an Israeli goal of turning Iran into a failed state can explain their repeated assassination of any figure who could possibly consolidate the reins of power.” (03/05/26)
“The varied reactions in the last 96 hours (as we write this) to the massive attack on Iran by the FedGov and the State of Israel have again revealed the growing divides in American society. Not just but especially in civic and political matters. This fragmentation is not just growing. The yawning gap in Americans’ opinions and positions also demonstrates the sources of the varying (and opposing) worldviews of our people. Including outright lies, twisted truth, crazy assumptions, and more. We can see it not just in the old parties, with the difference between blue and red States and politics. We see it too in libertarians. We are all over the place.” (03/04/26)
