A Liability Machine From The Start

Having abandoned Fairford, the USAF has fled Mildenhall. Next up, Lakenheath. And Croughton. And all of them. So much for Britain’s not being in the Iran War, but rather an innocent bystander to the massacre of the Minab schoolgirls, and an innocent victim of the wild inflation unleashed by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and of the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Even before mentioning our arming of Saudi Arabia in its devastation of Yemen, presumably because the Saudis shared our values, that has always been an outright lie, like the claim to have sanctioned the West Bank settlements, for which 13 of the United States are threatening to sanction Britain even though it had not really happened. No specific British sanction has been imposed.

Thomas Massie’s resolution to impeach Pete Hegseth was defeated by 211 votes to 204. 11 AIPAC Democrats did not turn up: Nancy Pelosi (CA-11), Haley Stevens (MI-11), Julia Brownley (CA-26), Lou Correa (CA-46), Laura Gillen (NY-4), Steven Horsford (NV-4), Jonathan Jackson (IL-1), Brittany Pettersen (CO-7), Melanie Stansbury (NM-1), Marilyn Strickland (WA-10) and Frederica Wilson (FL-24). The Israel Lobby has given them $17.681 million, with $15.9 million to Stevens alone. And Abdul El-Sayed still beat her. As Jade Russo writes:

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) on Monday reintroduced articles of impeachment against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Slippery Peter survived the Tuesday night vote in the House, which referred the impeachment to a committee and effectively killed it, but it is not inconceivable that the new, Democrat-heavy Congress will take another shot in the new year. The articles covered a fair bit of ground, but the nut of the argument was that Congress did not declare war against Iran or otherwise authorize the use of force, so Hegseth’s prosecution of the conflict has been unconstitutional and hence constitutes the “high crimes and misdemeanors” underpinning an impeachment case.

The conventional wisdom holds that this development does not look so good for the White House, politically. Having one of your cabinet officials impeached is embarrassing; even if the process ends in an acquittal by the Senate, it still gums up the works. It’s not a great way to recover from the hangover from last Tuesday’s midterm blowout.

But the conventional wisdom does not account for the art, science, and mystery of political judo. Consider that the administration has decided it doesn’t like the war very much—not just Vice President J.D. Vance, but also the principal, President Donald Trump, who sounds less than eager to return to the exertions of earlier rounds. Wrapping the thing up is the sticking point, though. A sudden, full-administration about-face would be damaging domestically, and the Iranians do not seem inclined publicly to take a generous line. (And no wonder—their calculus, after the 12-Day War and earlier episodes of kabuki-style proportional military responses, is that going ape is the only way to deter further attacks.)

Allow me to introduce into this unhappy broil our aggressively coiffed scapegoat, Peter B. Hegseth.

Let us remember that Hegseth has not been an optimally competent and PR-neutral official, even before he started howling for blood on live television. His Defense Department has been a staffing clown-show, largely self-inflicted; his high-profile reprisals against staffers, some of whom were his longtime friends and allies, in the end turned on entirely baseless accusations of leaking. He did not cover himself in glory during l’affaire Signalgate, although the preponderance of the responsibility fell (justly) on one of the administration’s other telegenic hominids, Mike Waltz, who was summarily exiled to the cocktail circuit in Turtle Bay. Hegseth has been subject to bimbo eruptions and weird TV appearances, and his signature efforts to bring the culture war to the Pentagon have received mixed reviews. And then he became the face of blowing up fishermen and schoolgirls, and posting hype videos about those activities. We’re not talking about hanging Doug Burgum out to dry here; Hegseth has been a liability machine from the start.

So why not pin this stupendously unpopular, difficult to resolve war on him? This is obviously an argument of expediency, not justice (mostly). The buck stops with the president, and there’s plenty of blame to go around among the other creatures of the camarilla, but that is for future historians to itemize. Here and now, there is an endangered official very publicly attached to a very unpopular policy. The president is no stranger to writing off distressed assets. Why not Hegseth? By his own admission, the war is why the GOP lost midterms. If he does not take the political credit for firing his stiff-haired pit bull, it will accrue to the members of the congressional party who break with him by voting for Hegseth’s ouster—something that is detrimental to party discipline, to say the least.

It should be underlined that this need not change policy; even a boring secretary of defense will do what he is told to do from on high. But if, behind closed doors, this is presented to the Iranians as a substantive change, that could be useful in brokering a deal. The Iranians have an idiosyncratic and, by my lights, often defective understanding of the American political system; getting rid of the fellow who blows up schoolgirls and crows about it on the television could conceivably cultivate a more reasonable attitude in Tehran.

The other option, of course, is standing by your man. This approach is often vindicated in American politics, at least as far back as the Clinton impeachments. But a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. There’s quite a lot of upside to getting rid of Hegseth; yes, the downside is giving away a hairgel-laden scalp, but it is a scalp of diminishing value while still attached to its unpopular skull. It is perhaps time to say goodbye.

Andrew Day writes:

President Donald Trump, after threatening for weeks to bring the “hammer” down on Iran, said Monday that a U.S. escalation is “unlikely” and the war is “effectively over” militarily. Antiwar voices breathed sighs of relief, and oil prices continued to plunge amid surging hopes of lasting peace.

But there’s a big problem.

Trump also says he’ll maintain America’s crushing economic pressure campaign against Tehran, including the naval blockade on Iranian ports. Not only is the blockade itself an act of war under international law, but the campaign makes a resumption of all-out hostilities more likely, regardless of the president’s intentions, experts told The American Conservative.

“While the American economic warfare against Iran is causing significant damage to the Iranian economy, there is little reason to believe that the Iranian leadership will surrender in an existential war when the population has rallied around the flag following multiple American atrocities against the Iranian people,” said Brett Erickson of Obsidian Risk Advisors.

The Islamic Republic, Erickson noted, has retained its military capability to escalate the regional war, and the Trump administration shouldn’t assume the Iranians will “stand idly by while the United States devastates their economy and citizens.”

Erickson’s comments align with expert analyses provided to TAC in early September, days after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent laid out the so-called “Economic D-Day” strategy to cripple and isolate Tehran economically. “Iran will keep fighting despite the economic pain,” said Rosemary Kelanic of Defense Priorities. “This is an existential conflict for them, and besides, capitulation isn’t a serious option when Trump’s demands are so erratic.”

“We’ve seen repeatedly that economic pressure can severely hurt ordinary people without producing the political outcome Washington expects,” added Sina Toossi, an Iran expert at the Center for International Policy. “Tehran is more likely to look for ways to withstand the pressure and impose costs of its own, including through its leverage over Hormuz and regional energy flows.”

Those pessimistic assessments proved prescient: October was the worst month of the war for Iranian strikes on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, a key chokepoint for the global energy trade. Iran successfully kept oil prices elevated to maximize the political costs for Trump and the Republican Party, using last week’s midterm elections as leverage. That’s evidence not only of Iran’s intact military capabilities, but of its strategic patience and willingness to escalate amid U.S. pressure.

Nevertheless, after the GOP’s midterm elections rout, the Trump administration raised the pressure. It stood up “Task Force Iron Gate,” which expands the blockade on weapons shipments to Iran by targeting land routes and shipping in the Caspian Sea.

The operation is led by Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of Central Command and reputedly one of the most hawkish military officials advising Trump. While the president may hope to save face without reigniting a deeply unpopular war, Cooper’s operation only intensifies low-grade fighting that already risked spiraling into major hostilities.

The loudest advocates of the operation—like Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)— would welcome a return to major U.S.-Israel strikes. Before the war, groups like the FDD sabotaged U.S.–Iran diplomacy by pushing the White House to adopt hardline demands that Tehran plainly would not agree to, as TAC has reported. Now, they back a strategy of economic strangulation that could lead to the regime change war scenario they actually want.

Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to move an aircraft carrier—the USS Theodore Roosevelt—to the Middle East. In mid- to late-November, the U.S. is set to briefly have a rare three-carrier presence in the region. If Iran judges a big U.S. attack to be inevitable or nearly so, it could preemptively strike.

Moreover, political pressure on Trump to restart the war will rise in the coming weeks. December 11 marks a deadline for Congress to fund the federal government, and a growing number of Democrats want to use the occasion to cut funding for the Iran War. With Congress coming under Democratic control in January, the Washington War Party sees the next few weeks as a crucial window to “finish the job” against Iran. Israeli political developments only add to the sense of urgency: Opposition parties are trying to form a new government, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to provoke another round of war in a desperate bid to hold onto power.

Whatever Trump may say, the economic pressure campaign against Iran isn’t an alternative to war. Unless and until the president walks away from the conflict, opponents of this disastrous war should remain vigilant.

And Joel Kotkin writes:

The phrase ‘success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan’ is a well-known proverb. And when it comes to the wipeout of Donald Trump last week, the blame game has as many padres as a medieval monastery.

US vice-president JD Vance – appealing to his preferred base of ‘heritage Americans’, those who can trace their roots to the early republic – essentially blamed the Iran war and America’s ties to Israel, much like his close buddy, Tucker Carlson. The mainstream libertarian Republican press has its own favourite explanations: Trump’s chaotic tariff policies, which certainly hurt voters in border states.

But the big enchilada was the loss of Latinos. In 2024, Republicans were polling close to parity among Latin American voters. In 2026, the Democrats are winning by two to one. The blame here is clear: Trump’s all-out assault on all undocumented immigrants, a policy somehow never mentioned by Vance, much as he fails to mention corruption. This disastrous policy could ramp up under the anti-immigrant zealot Stephen Miller, Trump’s unfortunate choice for his new chief of staff.

In 2024, Latino voters generally supported Trump’s initial policies of securing the border and arresting undocumented felons. What they were never going to support was taking out largely innocent, hard-working migrants, who are also their neighbours. The botched immigration crackdown has managed not only to alienate Latinos, but also most Americans, turning Trump’s best issue into one of his worst.

Last year, I directed a project at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas and found opposition to the activities of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) was fairly universal, even among Republican-leaning participants. National poll data also show Latinos are far less in favour of the current ICE drive against non-criminal undocumented immigrants than most Americans. Some 65 per cent of Latinos think Trump has overreached on immigration.

In one particularly poignant focus group in the Californian city of Riverside, each of the panel’s 11 members described their concerns over the break-up of hard-working and law-abiding families. Yet for all their concern, at the end of the day, when we asked them if they were optimistic about the future, all 11 enthusiastically said ‘yes’.

The progressive attempt to paint Latinos and other immigrants as primarily loyal to la raza is simply wrong. The Civitas study polled Latinos nationwide and found a population that largely wants what most Americans desire: a good wage, a single-family house, good schools and public safety. The thing they care least about is living with people who look like them.

Critically, Latinos are more optimistic than white Americans. Latinos still believe in and cherish the American Dream, and a majority believe they can still achieve it. They are, if anything, more ‘American’ in work ethic and religious faith than Vance’s ‘heritage Americans’. And, unlike Minnesota’s Somali community, they do not seek to bring Islamism to America, as Latinos overwhelmingly reflect the essentially Christian values of most Americans.

Rather than Vance’s ‘heritage Americans’, Latinos, along with Asians, will define the post-racial American future. Their combined share of the US population is now a quarter, but should rise to one-third by 2050.

The growth of the Latino population will play a huge role in America’s economic future. In 2022, the US Latino GDP reached $3.7 trillion and is now the world’s fifth-largest. In 1990, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Latinos accounted for approximately 10.7million workers. By 2020, this had grown to 29 million, and is projected to reach nearly 35.9million by 2030. Between 2020 and 2030, Latinos will account for 78 per cent of new US workers. Overall, the Latino share of the workforce is expected to double to nearly 30 per cent by 2060.

Much of this growth comes from small businesses – ironically the traditional GOP bulwark. Latino business owners in 2019 employed 2.9million workers, and sales in Latino-owned businesses totalled more than $620 billion. Today, Latinos start more businesses per capita than any other US racial or ethnic group.

Even as they have deserted Republicans, Latinos share many values – notably on cultural issues – that align with mainstream Republican positions. But they tend to be further left of centre on economic issues.

Yet their overall goals are more typically American than the left might imagine. Latino households want to live in safe communities. They are also among the least likely ethnic groups to support cuts to police funding. Among self-described Latino liberals, nearly 60 per cent oppose defunding the police, far more than white liberals (27 per cent) and black liberals (44 per cent). Latinos also boast some of the highest rates of voluntary enlistment and military service. They represent the fastest-growing population in the military, making up about 20 per cent of all active-duty personnel. The number of police officers who are Latino increased from eight per cent in 1997 to 14 per cent in 2020.

In economic terms, the red-state model certainly retains some appeal. Our study found that Latinos generally do better in states – like Texas – that have grown in manufacturing, energy, construction and logistics – fields in which they are overrepresented. They also benefit from lower housing prices created by market-oriented zoning policies. Latino homeownership rates in Texas are 14 points higher than in the Golden State.

Overall, Latinos in Texas make $10,000 more per capita than their California counterparts. They also fare better in many Midwestern and Plains states, such as Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska.

Latino influence increasingly extends well beyond the south-west. In 2000, Latinos made up more than 20 per cent of the population in four states. Today, they account for more than 20 per cent in eight states. By 2030, the Census Bureau projects that Latinos will account for 22 per cent of the national population. They are transforming even the most iconic traditionally Anglo areas, including Nashville, America’s country-music capital. As recently as 2000, less than three per cent of metro Nashville’s population was Latino, but by 2020, that percentage had more than tripled.

All this suggests that the Vance strategy of focusing on ‘heritage Americans’ is doomed. The vast majority of Americans – apart from African and Native Americans – actually trace their roots to the two great immigration waves: one in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the other after 1965./ Vance’s nativism – the idea that ‘people whose ancestors fought in the Civil War have a hell of a lot more claim over America’ – has little appeal to those whose parents or grandparents crossed the border, entered at Ellis Island, like my family, or immigrated by jet more recently to LAX or JFK. It is an assured way to make the Democrats a permanent ruling party.

Attacking Latinos is also a losing political strategy. California already provides a cautionary tale. Proposition 187 in 1994 – which sought to ban illegal immigrants from accessing non-emergency healthcare and other state services – helped Republican Pete Wilson defeat Democrat Kathleen Brown. But the aftershocks have proven disastrous. The Latino vote increased by 184 per cent between 2000 and 2020, and a once highly competitive state has become a one-party one, where Democrats win with margins of victory regularly ranging from 10 to 30 points. By 2018, the California Latino vote had reached 3.3million, nearly doubling its election turnout from 2014, with the turnout rate of Latino voting-age citizens increasing from 25 per cent to 43 per cent over the same period.

Alienating Latinos bit Republicans hard last week. This was most evident in Texas, where Latinos constitute 40 per cent of the population. Texas’s economic growth may have benefited Latinos. But racist dog whistles from Republican candidates like Bo French, running for a state-railroad-commissioner post, in addition to ICE overreach and the awfulness of Senate nominee Ken Paxton, drove them into the arms of the Democrats. This phenomenon cost the Republicans numerous state and federal seats in Latino-dominated South Texas, reversing all their gains made in 2024.

Latino voters also helped turn Arizona, for the first time in 60 years, into an all-Democratic state, one where Republicans once did respectably. Latinos in the state shifted 25 points towards the Democrats compared with 2024, much as occurred throughout the country. Latino voters also increased Democratic margins in reliably blue states like California, New York, New Jersey and Illinois. What have long been difficult states for Republicans now seem to be on the verge of becoming impossible.

Right-wing commentators have often seen Latino cultural views as fundamentally conservative, making them natural allies of the fundamentalist cultural wing of the Republican Party. And, to be sure, Latinos, particularly immigrants, tend to be more conservative on such issues as abortion, family and religious adherence than Democrats.

But if Republicans want to compete for these winnable voters, they have to stop listening to the likes of Tucker Carlson, JD Vance and Stephen Miller. It starts with recognising that America, unlike Britain, Japan or much of Europe, does not base its national identity on ethnic identity, but on an embrace of constitutional principles such as free speech, the rule of law and the right to acquire property.

Latinos, apart from radical academics and woke media, see themselves simply as another face of America. They are part of that remarkable and evolving ‘race of races’, as Walt Whitman put it, that remains America’s existential reality. There is only one America; it is perhaps a little browner and less European than it used to be, but still capable of employing its diversity to make it ever more remarkable.

Latinos’ integration can also be seen in their move to the suburbs and exurbs rather than to core cities, where the far left now increasingly rules, or to the agricultural countryside. Between 1990 and 2010, the percentage of Latinos living in suburbs grew from 47 per cent to 59 per cent. This reflects, in part, their fundamental aspiration to purchase a single-family house, which came through so strongly in our polling.

To get back in the game, Republicans will need to go beyond their overwhelmingly white MAGA base, the group Vance and his acolytes focus on. Their appeal should be based on economic mobility, reindustrialisation and, in particular, opportunities for home ownership. In 2024, Republicans made this case, combining a more conservative cultural stance with an opportunity-driven economic agenda.

But this year, Donald Trump’s immigration excesses ‘trumped’ the Democrats’ unpopular cultural agenda, while corruption and renewed inflation did the rest. If the Republican Party sticks with its nativist agenda, it should prepare for a long stint in the dustbin of political history.