Whatever Trump does tonight is an unmitigated disaster for the GOP

We surely can’t diminish the clear threat of nuclear destruction that Trump has made, posting this morning that a “whole civilization will be wiped out tonight” if Iran doesn’t accept his “deal.” This followed his deranged 1.5 hour press conference yesterday that showed how much of a lunatic he’s become, ending with “We want Greenland.”

Trump is threatening to kill millions of civilians, destroying civilian infrastructure, engaging in blatant, pre-announced war crimes. And J.D. Vance backed up on a trip to Hungary this morning, stumping for the authoritarian Victor Orbán, who is embattled, facing a tough election next week (and is getting both Vladimir Putin’s and Trump’s endorsements, which tells you everything you need to know).

“We’ve got tools in our tool kit we haven’t used,” Vance said, demanding the Iranians bow to Trump’s wishes or else.

Iran’s response, according to Reuters, was to close all diplomatic and indirect channels of communication with the U.S.

If that’s true, Trump’s threat clearly didn’t have the desired effect.

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As you read this, he is either planning to actually engage in a scorched-earth military operation that could end in mass death. Or he’s bluffing again—it would be the third time—and will soon announce some sort of “breakthrough” in the supposed negotiations and say he is giving Iran more time.

But, even as we can’t rule out that Trump will engage in unspeakable war crimes and perhaps even use nuclear weapons—and we surely don’t want to see anything like that happening—whatever Trump does is an unmitigated disaster for him and the GOP.

Surely if Trump follows through with his threat, the entire world would be enveloped, the entire region of the Middle East catastrophically so. There aren’t enough conventional weapons on hand for Trump to “wipe out” an entire civilization within hours. But even if there were, Iran has threatened to destroy bridges, desalination plants, and infrastructure all through the Gulf states. And if Trump used nuclear weapons, well, it goes without saying that the Gulf allies would face horrific ramifications as well.

The blowback politically would be astounding for the GOP. The wiping out of entire cities, peoples, and countries—all for oil—and the escalation of war that MAGA voters are already opposed to. Gas prices would surge out of control, too—to prices we’ve probably never seen before.

If Trump backs down, however, and claims a big “win” with a “deal” (however real it is) it will likely be one that keeps Iran’s regime in tact and brings things back to the status quo, with the Strait of Hormuz open, but still threatened by Iran at any time. The entire operation will be seen as having thrown the economy into chaos for nothing. Gas prices will only continue to go up as the fallout continues. Moody’s Analytics predicts gas prices will not ever recover, certainly not this year, or next, and will stay at the current prices or rise, into next year and beyond. The price of everything else will go up too.

Trump has caused a disaster for himself and Republicans, and he keeps looking for a way he can “win”—to the point now of threatening civilizational destruction. We can only hope that he sees that this would be an even bigger loss for him—he doesn’t care about the people killed, so hoping on that one is useless—and accepts the smaller loss, even though it’s still a bleak picture for him and the GOP.