Trump's Iran war derailing his real revenge obsession: analysis

The war in Iran has worn down President Donald Trump's spirit and sidetracked his "culture war obsessions," an analyst explained on Monday.

Salon's Amanda Marcotte discussed how Trump has tried to convince the American public to support the ongoing war in the Middle East. Despite his attempts during his address to the nation last week, he "sounded like a whipped dog, barely able to summon the energy to make false promises about ending the war 'very shortly.'"

Trump has also attempted to redirect attention from Iran back to his "culture war fixations."

"There is no telling how bad the war and the economy will get, but one thing is starting to become certain: The war in Iran and the escalating economic damage from it is getting in the way of Trump’s true love, which is waging culture wars that stir up the ugliest impulses within the MAGA base," Marcotte wrote. "The president desperately wants everyone to stop talking about oil prices, bombed schools and the Strait of Hormuz, and get back to stoking racist hysteria and leading revenge campaigns against his perceived enemies."

As the president has tried to convince his base to care about the SAVE Act, his Supreme Court birthright citizenship case and continued election fraud claims, he still can't quite convince Americans to shift their focus away from the Iran war and the economic fallout.

"Because of this Trump has a reason, however awful it may be, to keep his culture war obsessions front and center," Marcotte added. "The unbending loyalty of the MAGA base has always been his shield, protecting him from political collapse even when everyone outside of 65% of Americans disapprove of his performance as president. As the Covid-19 pandemic showed, these people will go to great lengths, including refusing to protect themselves against a deadly virus, if they feel it serves their larger cause of winning the culture war."

"But if it seems Trump’s attention is fully pulled away from their paranoias and hatreds, he risks demoralizing them — especially since he’s a rapidly-aging lame duck. But by foolishly starting a war that is spiraling out of control, his ability to redirect public attention to issues that better serve his political ambitions seems to have been crushed."