The Democrats refuse to credit Trump for anything he does. But there is something similar on the Right, though not as extreme. Sean Hannity last night on his show found the following Trump tweet funny, and found nothing in it to criticize:
Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.
Now if you are morally sane you will grant there is no moral equivalence between the USA and any Islamo-theocratic terror state. No such state should be tolerated. What’s more, the civilized world must not tolerate any state, Islamist or not, that sponsors terrorism. The current Iranian regime not only sponsors world-wide terrorism through its proxies, but also is (or was) well on the way to the possession of nuclear warheads and the means to delivery them intercontinentally. It ought to be perfectly evident that “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” are not slogans but policies, and that the threat to implement them has been proven credible by Iranian actions since 1979.
The current regime in Iran must therefore be forced to acquiesce in Trump’s demands, including the surrendering of all uranium enriched to the point where it could be used in ‘suitcase’ dirty bombs. But why can’t the president just say this in a ‘presidential’ way, the say I have just said it? The whole world knows that he is a man who will act on his word. They know he is not a merely performative professional politician like Biden and the rest of the effete and epicene Democrats who put their private interests above the public good.
Why the unnecessary crudity, and more importantly, why the mockery of all Muslims in the final sentence? And why can’t Hannity, a reasonable fellow, bring himself to say something like what I just wrote?
What we have here, friends, is political polarization in excelsis.
Things are made worse by the “God on our side” mentality of some on the Right. Edward Feser’s take on this matter needs to be carefully thought through.
Theme music: With God on Our Side
Crossposted at Substack in a slightly improved version.
Bill,
I too was disgusted by the vulgarity and irreverence of Trump’s language. The same holds true of his foolish pronouncement that “a whole civilization will die tonight.”
Feser is not wrong to condemn the “God is on our side mentality” of some, mainly broadly Evangelical, supporters of Trump’s foreign policy, but his “Contra White and Graham,” shares something of their sanctimonious, ahistorical perspective on world events.
Vito
Bill,
And then, of course, we have à gauche the prattle by Pope Prevost: “I would simply say, once again, what I said in the ‘Urbi et Orbi’ message on Sunday: asking all people of goodwill to search, always, for peace and not violence; to reject war, especially a war which many people have said is an unjust war, which is continuing to escalate and which is not resolving anything.” *
Notice, in particular, the seemingly benign phrases “especially a war which many people” and “not resolving anything” that provide mask a politics of acquiescence and appeasement of a brutal terrorist regime on the cusp of producing nuclear weapons. And who exactly are these “many people”? The estimated 30 to 60 thousand Iranians and others, including thousands of Americans, slaughtered by the regime since 1979, that is, all those shot down in the streets, tortured to death, made to disappear, or killed by proxies aboard? The ten million people of Israel, a vital strategic ally of the US, that seek to avoid nuclear destruction by a nuclear armed Iran? No. More likely, Prevost has in mind his usual audience, the leftists and quislings that make up the political elite of Europe, the UN, and the current global episcopate, including that of the US.
As for his “not resolving anything,” it is so removed from the facts of the matter as to be laughable: Iran’s enriched uranium buried under a mountain of debris, with its removal, one of the goals of the US, still undecided; two-thirds of its ballistic missile arsenal destroyed; its AAM systems, air force, and navy destroyed; and an estimated 70 percent of its armament and steel production, its means to produce new weapons, damaged or obliterated.
* https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/07/pope-leo-condemns-trumps-latest-threats-against-iran-00862464
Vito