OPINION:
Americans have very short attention spans, especially when it comes to their pocketbooks and political leadership. Some of this is built in.
The Constitution requires an election for the entire House every two years, for president every four years and for Senate elections every six years, with staggered terms so the entire upper body is never on the ballot at the same time.
Although this arrangement guarantees that voters do not have to wait long to right the ship of state if they think it is foundering, it gives American foreign policy negotiators a huge disadvantage with their international counterparts, especially totalitarian regimes.
The timeline for President Trump and his administration is quite different from that of the Iranian ayatollahs, who still control their country’s government and, apparently, the Strait of Hormuz, plus remaining stocks of uranium.
Mr. Trump and other Republicans are looking ahead to congressional elections in less than five months. The speed at which gasoline prices fall may well determine who controls Capitol Hill.
The Tehran regime, like the Chinese communists in Beijing, has no expiration date. They can afford to wait out the Americans. Against this backdrop, the administration announced a peace deal with Iran that leaves in place the current regime, allows it to start selling oil again and supposedly opens the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic.
In return, the Iranians have yet again agreed not to work toward acquiring nuclear weapons while implausibly insisting they have never had such a program.
Iran has promised to negotiate for another 60 days, all the while rebuilding its supplies of missiles, drones, anti-aircraft devices and other military equipment. It seems confident that Democrats and mainstream media will undermine support for renewed U.S. military action against it when they inevitably cheat.
While this is going on, the Trump administration has warned Israel to stop bombing Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, who have been sending missiles into northern Israel for years. If Canada, Mexico or Cuba were sending missiles daily into the United States, do you think we would agree to leave them alone?
Every election, we are told, will be the most important in our lifetimes. It is not hyperbole. Think what you will of Republicans, who often inexplicably fumble the ball (as in the Senate’s seeming inability to pass the SAVE America Act to safeguard elections), but the Democrats have morphed into an outright anti-American, socialist party.
Democrats are devoted to open borders, sexual anarchy, confiscatory taxes, wealth redistribution, a growing antisemitic component and a steady supply of lunatics such as James Talarico, their “six genders” Senate candidate in Texas, and Graham Platner, the Nazi-tattooed, reportedly woman-abusing communist in Maine.
Democrats elected Marxist mayors in major cities such as New York and Seattle, and soon in the District of Columbia, along with prosecutors who side with criminals instead of victims.
The party is united by white-hot hatred of Mr. Trump. Unfortunately, the president’s unabashed narcissism fuels it.
By putting his name on the Kennedy Center and proclaiming that the America 250 celebration on the National Mall will be a “Trump rally,” he feeds the “No Kings” nonsense. Although it may be fun for him, it is hurting Republicans’ chances of retaining Congress because it rubs many independents the wrong way.
Instead of dismissing concern over high gas prices, Mr. Trump must remind Americans that inflation was worse under President Biden and that a single, 10-megaton blast from an Iranian missile in the New York area would kill up to 12 million people.
That was why he bombed Iran in the first place.
The stakes are enormous, which is why the Trump administration has been negotiating with a figurative gun to its head. Hurry up and bring down gas prices. If not, you will turn the country back over to the party of people who, pollsters have revealed, despise America.
On so many levels, the second Trump administration has been a return to sanity and good government. Undoing it would be disastrous.
The alternative to the Iran deal is to go back to bombing Tehran into the Stone Age, which apparently is far more difficult than what we have been told. Maybe they are getting bad intelligence?
In any case, once again, it seems the very soul of America is on the ballot in November. A Democratic takeover of Congress would produce more impeachments, hamstring the administration and set the stage for the 2028 presidential election.
A Senate led by now-Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, would attempt to reverse popular Republican reforms such as stopping illegal immigration, unleashing America’s energy industry, cutting taxes, uncovering massive welfare fraud and securing religious liberty in the face of LGBTQ-inspired totalitarianism. It would also doom the president’s judicial nominees.
The larger problem is that federal elections matter too much. The government was never supposed to be this big, reaching into everyone’s lives in ways unimagined by the Founders and even by the American people just a few generations ago.
Yet here we are. Republicans had better sharpen their message and remind voters about what kind of country they want their children and grandchildren to grow up in.
The Iranians are not the only ones who want to fundamentally deconstruct America.
• Robert Knight is a columnist for The Washington Times. His website is roberthknight.com.
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