I read "that's the first strike against MAGA" as a strike like a military strike. But I guess it's more like a baseball strike? Yeah, that doesn't make sense given the couple of paragraphs the guy just wrote:Sullivan’s trick is to present a critique of Trump and then conflate MAGA with Trump:
“That’s the first strike against MAGA: the decision to go to war at all.”
Trump created MAGA and tapped into its power to win the first election but MAGA has since existed, independent of Trump, as a belief system rooted in being an American and in all the founding aspects of America, the greatest source of power we have. MAGA is one thing Trump can’t throw under the bus. Sooner vice versa.
The only actual flaw in MAGA as a slogan is “again.” America is actually greater than ever. Our continuing challenge is to make it even greater. That’s a cause both parties can and should embrace, as should we all.
And so I find myself asking what happens when a president who campaigned on lowering inflation and never going to war in the Middle East … decides to go to war in the Middle East and thereby fuel inflation. What happens when a president who became his party’s nominee three times because he spurned neocon wars … turns around and embraces the regime-change war the neocons have been pushing for decades?
The Trump cult has survived so much. But this? I wonder. Those who joined MAGA for reasons other than celebrity worship have been publicly humiliated. Caldwell, Ahmari, Greene, Kelly, Carlson, Fuentes, Owens et al (in descending order of respectability) have all gotten off the train. Tucker even apologized this week! And yes, the internet and podcastland are not reality — but these people do represent a real swathe of real opinion. To realize Trump has preferred Miriam Adelson’s vision to theirs all along must burn.
No kidding. Trump has redefined international relations. The old guard is left staring into the future with no old-style paradigms to rely on. Uncle Sam’s timidity that left Venezuela and Iran as incurable boils on the world’s backside is over. Trump’s Venezuelan effort that has left a friendly Delcy Rodríguez in charge was brilliantly conceived and executed.
It remains to be seen if he can pull a rabbit out of the hat in Iran like he did in Venezuela. There are a lot more moving parts and unknowns there. A couple things we do know, Irans days as the regional terror mother ship are over, and its nuke capability probably is.
What NOBODY will talk about is the Shia-Sunni eternal blood libel conflict.
It will never end....
Like the American/ Zionist neocon blood lust, which is also endless.
The Trump cult has survived so much. But this? I wonder. Those who joined MAGA for reasons other than celebrity worship have been publicly humiliated. Caldwell, Ahmari, Greene, Kelly, Carlson, Fuentes, Owens et al (in descending order of respectability) have all gotten off the train. Tucker even apologized this week! And yes, the internet and podcastland are not reality — but these people do represent a real swathe of real opinion. To realize Trump has preferred Miriam Adelson’s vision to theirs all along must burn.
Adelson's "vision" was all cash. The aforementioned Trump supporters just didn't pony up the money. That's what matters most.