Armageddon vs. the price of gas
U.S. President Donald Trump, pictured delivering the State of the Union address. / WHITE HOUSE PHOTO
Among other reasons, President Donald Trump rode to re-election in 2024 on a wave of voter dissatisfaction with the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris administration's failure to tackle post-COVID inflation.
“Make America Affordable Again” was a key sub-theme of the President’s overall MAGA messaging. At a closing 2024 rally in Saginaw, Michigan, he said: “Starting on Day One of my new administration, we will end inflation, and we will make America affordable again.”
But heading into this Fall’s U.S. mid-term congressional election, American voters are not convinced that Trump has succeeded in this regard. A recent poll found that 70% of Americans say their income only matches or falls short of their expenses. The President's overall approval rating at 37% is approaching the low point — 34% — it reached just after his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020. Perhaps more worrying for the President, another recent poll found that 60% of Americans do not support his higher tariff policies (and resultant higher prices), the very centrepiece of his economic agenda.
Trump has responded to this bad polling news by simply denying that it is true. A recent survey of the President’s speeches by Reuters found that, “In five speeches on the economy since December, Trump asserted that inflation had been beaten or was way down almost 20 times and said prices were falling almost 30 times, assertions at odds with economic data and voters' daily experiences.”
In fairness to Trump, he is not the first President to insist that things are going better than voters think. Both President Obama and President Biden tried to make the same case throughout their administrations. The difference between them and Trump is that, by word and action, they placed the highest priority on rebuilding the economy. Obama succeeded. Biden didn’t.
The siren song of regime change in Iran
Which brings us to the curious decision by President Trump to join Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in launching a massive air assault on Iran.
Iran has become something of a graveyard for presidential ambition. From Jimmy Carter being politically destroyed by the seizure of American embassy hostages in Tehran, to betting that Saddam Hussein would topple the regime in the Iran-Iraq War, to Ronald Regan being severely damaged by the Iran-Contra arms for hostages deal.
Given this unpromising record, one could be forgiven for thinking that the Iran attack was a transparently cynical attempt by Trump to “wag the dog” — to distract voter attention from their economic troubles with a flag-waving success against an unpopular regime, whose animus against the U.S. stretched back almost 50 years. If so, it has been spectacularly ill-judged so far.
Trump may have counted on the traditional “rally around the flag” effect, in which voter support for the president rises amid armed conflict. However, every poll taken since the strikes last weekend has shown large majorities opposing them, even among an electorate deeply polarized. And those who support the strikes say it is conditioned on there being no or few American casualties and no resulting rise in gas prices.
A small number of Americans have been killed so far. But U.S. gas prices have indeed spiked, by an average of 11 cents per gallon nationally in the days after the attacks began; this on top of a 25-cent-per-gallon increase that occurred as Middle East tensions ramped up in the month before the strikes.
Shifting justifications: If it’s Tuesday, it must be regime change!
The most problematic aspect of the Trump administration’s handling of the conflict has been its steadily shifting, often contradictory justifications for it. The President has at various times said the strikes were about destroying Iran's nuclear installations (which he said had been totally destroyed in an earlier U.S.-Israel airstrike); destroying the Iranian military generally; overthrowing the regime; and finally, as a preemptive strike to prevent an imminent attack on the United States. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said it was launched to prevent an imminent strike on Israel, then backed off that justification the next day.
Amidst this spray of chaotic messaging, other explanations have emerged. Isolationist and “America First” voices have criticized the war, saying the U.S. shouldn’t be involved and that Trump’s decision betrays the non‑interventionist promises he made during the 2024 campaign. This includes prominent conservative commentators publicly decrying the use of force and urging a focus on domestic priorities.
Critics within the MAGA movement — including influencers like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and Matt Walsh — argue the messaging around the war is inconsistent and that the conflict doesn’t directly serve American national interests. Some have even labeled it more of Israel’s war than America’s.
And in a bizarre revisitation from the 1960s anti-nuclear war movie Dr. Strangelove, the UK’s Independent reported that a military commander told a group of non-commissioned officers that President Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.” The commander was quoted further to the effect that “this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”
The only thing that voters can know for certain about attacks on Iran is that, contrary to his promises, he is paying more attention to foreign policy than to the economy, and that gas prices are up. If Trump wants them to rally behind this venture, they need a clear, compelling reason that will override their deeply entrenched economic worries.
It’s the economy, stupid!
President George H.W. Bush famously lost a second term to then-governor Bill Clinton by looking like he cared more about the Middle East than he did about the things that mattered at home to voters. Bush's loss validated a now legendary political message: It's the economy, stupid!
President Donald Trump has always seemed to grasp this idea implicitly. But for some reason he seems to have forgotten it. True, he does not need to win another term, but his congressional Republican caucus does, and in just eight months' time. They are no doubt worried about a debate that is wobbling aimlessly toward a midterm offering to voters of a potentially lethal political choice between, at worst, a President appearing to toy with the end of the world, and, at best, higher gas prices
Climate change activists have learned the hard way how U.S. voters feel about gas prices. Given a choice come November between Armageddon and lower gas prices, the smart money will not be on Holy Scripture.
