Politicians break campaign promises with hardly any hesitation and usually they get away with it. Americans have come to put up with broken promises for so long, they hardly even seem to notice. Last week, however, voters noticed. They showed the Republican party just how angry they were over President Trump’s decision to attack Iran and how angry they were with Congress for abandoning its Constitutional authority over matters of war and peace.
The results were dramatic. Voters even turned Texas blue, as Democrats took firm control of both the House and Senate.
As President Trump’s promise of a quick war and a quick victory rapidly faded, the costs of the unnecessary and illegal attack thousands of miles away soon began to hit Americans hard. The predictable closure of the Hormuz Strait sent fuel costs through the roof, fanning the fires of inflation which hit everything transported by road, rail, or air.
For months the polls were clear: Americans’ top three concerns were high fuel prices, inflation, and the Iran war. All were related yet Republicans ignored voter concerns. Last Tuesday, voters had the final say.
The peace candidate usually wins, and President Trump promised repeatedly on the campaign trail that not only would he not start wars, but he would end existing conflicts. But we’ve heard it all before. George W. Bush was elected promising a “more humble” foreign policy. After eight years of Bush’s Middle East wars, Obama was elected as the “new” peace candidate. However soon the “Saddam must go” of the Bush era became “Assad must go” and “Gaddafi must go” in the Obama era. Trump was elected after Biden took us to the brink of war with Russia over Ukraine. He promised that this time he would be the real peace candidate. We got war on Iran instead – a war that we did not win and cannot win.
Has the Republican party gotten the message? Have they learned the lesson voters can deliver when they finally have had enough of being lied to?
Neocons are seeing the voter rebuke of Trump as an opportunity to return the Republican party to the Bush era. Yes, prices and inflation are a problem, they argue, but that has nothing to do with the Iran war.
Nobody is buying that.
Vice President Vance laid out clearly why Republicans lost in the midterms: the war, inflation, rejection of America first, and our unhealthy relationship with Israel. Bush-era neocons like Marc Thiessen were furious, accusing Vance of being “disloyal” to the President.
Does Vance really mean what he said, or is it just another example of politicians promising what they think voters want to hear?
It seems a Republican Party that drummed out Thomas Massie over his opposition to the “Big Beautiful Bill,” who warned about the dangers of putting foreign countries before our own, and who demanded an end to all foreign aid is not a Republican Party that Americans are interested in.
The pain will continue until the Party finally rids itself of the neocons and warmongers and returns to its roots as exemplified in the past by the late Sen. Robert Taft and in the present by Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Kent, Tucker Carlson, and many others who genuinely care about peace and liberty.
