(Aug 21, 2026 11:43 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: Thank You for Your Inattention to This Matter

The good news is that the world has stopped responding breathlessly to Donald Trump’s every empty provocation. That’s also the bad news.

By David A. Graham, The Atlantic

"One of Donald Trump’s current favorite riffs is to contrast how (in his opinion) the United States was seen under his predecessor, Joe Biden, and how it’s seen now.

“They didn’t respect us two years ago. They laughed at us. NATO laughed at us. Everybody laughed at us,” Trump said at a summit in Turkey with allies last month. “They don’t laugh anymore. There’s no more laughing.”

He’s right. It’s worse than laughing—they’re ignoring the president of the United States altogether. Trump styles himself as an heir to Theodore Roosevelt, but where Roosevelt said that America should speak softly and carry a big stick, Trump speaks loudly and carries a small one. Roosevelt’s bully pulpit has been reduced to a bullshit pulpit.

This week, Trump made two announcements that, in the past, would have shaken the globe. Speaking to Fox News’s Trey Yingst about negotiations with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said, “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them.” In an ordinary world, such a threat would be a huge news event. Oman is not a hostile nation: It is one of the oldest U.S. allies in the Gulf region and has been a key intermediary in negotiations with Iran for years.

Yet the news drew little governmental response. Neither Oman nor other U.S. allies in the region issued official comments or took any other action that suggested that they found the threat realistic. One possible reason for their muted response is that Trump has actually made this threat before: He said in May that if Oman didn’t cooperate with Americans’ plans for the strait, “we’ll have to blow them up.”

Trump’s credibility has been undercut by his own capriciousness. Back then, he was threatening Oman over any negotiations that would imperil the neutrality of the Strait of Hormuz. On Tuesday, however, he posted a graphic on Truth Social that declared the strait a “NEW U.S. Territory.” (He’d previously said that he would soon declare it U.S. territory.) American annexation of an international waterway would represent a major shift in maritime legal precedent and require an enormous U.S.-military presence, but everyone knew that the pronouncement was nonsense. Trump has no means of controlling the strait, and The Washington Post reports that the Defense Department is actually considering a reduced regional footprint. Trump has also repeatedly promised that a deal with Iran is near completion, but after multiple false starts, these announcements fool only the markets.

This is a big shift. During his first term, Trump garnered outsized attention for outrageous statements. In August 2017, for example, he created an international incident by threatening North Korea with “fire, fury, and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.” Trump clearly delighted in how the press and global leaders would scramble to respond to these provocations, and some people argued that he was pursuing Richard Nixon’s “madman theory” of keeping adversaries off balance. One can draw a direct connection between the fire-and-fury threat in 2017 and Trump’s friendly statements about North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in the past week. But over time, the world has grown jaundiced about Trump’s threats.

The good news is that few world leaders and observers feel the need to take Trump’s outbursts seriously anymore. Fire drills driven by Trump’s idle talk fatigue the media, the public, and geopolitical systems, and they distract from more important stories. But that’s also the bad news. First, some of the things that Trump says are very dangerous. His favoritism toward North Korea could destabilize the region and encourage South Korea and Japan—to say nothing of Iran and other rogue states—to pursue nuclear-weapons programs. Second, he does occasionally follow through; Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro may have thought that Trump was bluffing before he was arrested during an American incursion in January.

Third, Trump needs credibility to enact his agenda, including to try to end the quagmire in Iran. On Wednesday, he said that he was “announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY!” All-caps notwithstanding, this declaration didn’t receive a great deal of attention. (“They have no clear plan, unfortunately,” one Middle Eastern diplomat told NOTUS.) In order for the sanctions regime he envisions to have its greatest effect, Trump will need the cooperation of allies as well as rival powers such as China. But years of empty boasts and months of feints on Iran mean that other world leaders don’t really heed Trump’s statements. He’s failed to enlist key allies in the war effort, and China has declined to take any concrete action in the strait, despite Trump traveling to Beijing in May to pressure Xi Jinping.

This diminished respect given to presidential statements is self-evidently bad for Trump, and it does nothing to make America great again. But it’s also bad for the world. Even now, no other country has the power the U.S. has to maintain order, and the closest challengers, Russia and China, pursue systems that are repressive and dangerous. The U.S. can regain credibility only by using its rhetoric more carefully and matching its actions to its words—two things that are unlikely to happen under Trump. If he wants to be believed, the president needs to either surrender some American influence or show that his threats are real, and neither option is appealing. The costs of not being taken seriously are very serious indeed. "------ https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/2026/08/trump-inattention-iran-war/688381/

(Aug 22, 2026 08:26 PM)Syne Wrote: There is no red state where ranchers compose enough of the electorate to change the whole state to purple or blue, even assuming ranchers would ever go so far.... when Democrats want to add increasing restrictions on ranching.

(Aug 23, 2026 06:10 PM)TheVat Wrote:

(Aug 22, 2026 08:26 PM)Syne Wrote: There is no red state where ranchers compose enough of the electorate to change the whole state to purple or blue, even assuming ranchers would ever go so far.... when Democrats want to add increasing restrictions on ranching.

"Agribusiness sector"'was intended to allude to the dependence of a wider segment of the population on what ranchers do.  You don't have to be a rancher to have familial connections to them, or a job which is affected by their products, or just see it as a cultural touchstone one identifies with.  (I don't, personally)  People who run cattle often end up holding state offices, so their voices are heard, perhaps disproportionately.  I'm not suggesting a Democrat has never advanced legislation that might restrict grazing, or other restrictions, but out here they've sometimes managed to make clear they are on the side of preserving grazing land for longterm viability and sustainable agriculture.  Which ranchers very much desire.  The POTUS has zero interest in these matters and his SA beef dump is entirely performative, intended to somehow rebut the obvious inflationary effects his economic policies are having.  You can't fool Plains Republicans forever.

...
Yet despite these challenges, many farmers remain supportive of Trump.

“As farmers because of tariffs we are hurting, however, for the long term if something doesn’t happen the country is going to fall,” one Nebraskan farmer told The Daily Wire. “He’s trying to make changes for the better.”

A farmer from southern Illinois echoed that sentiment. “I don’t think farmers are going to start voting Democratic. Under both the Biden and Trump administrations, we’ve dealt with low grain prices alongside higher diesel costs. Farmers have been squeezed by lower commodity prices and rising input costs. The difference today is that fertilizer costs are higher than they were under the last administration, but we’ve also received some relief through the Big Beautiful Bill’s Farmer Bridge Assistance Program. It’s not a cure-all, but it does help offset some of the pressure farmers are facing.”

The farmers’ views highlight the challenge facing Democrats. Farmers across the Midwest are experiencing real economic strain, but while the frustration is real, it has not translated into a mass movement towards the other side of the aisle.

NBC interviewed 13 Iowa farmers and found that while many were hurting from burdening rising costs, the majority said they don’t regret supporting Trump.
...
- https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrats-open-new-midterm-front-in-americas-heartland?author=Brecca+Stoll&category=News&elementPosition=undefined&row=0&rowType=Vertical+List&title=Democrats+Open+New+Midterm+Front+In+America%E2%80%99s+Heartland

(Aug 23, 2026 09:08 PM)Syne Wrote:

(Aug 23, 2026 06:10 PM)TheVat Wrote:

(Aug 22, 2026 08:26 PM)Syne Wrote: There is no red state where ranchers compose enough of the electorate to change the whole state to purple or blue, even assuming ranchers would ever go so far.... when Democrats want to add increasing restrictions on ranching.

"Agribusiness sector"'was intended to allude to the dependence of a wider segment of the population on what ranchers do.  You don't have to be a rancher to have familial connections to them, or a job which is affected by their products, or just see it as a cultural touchstone one identifies with.  (I don't, personally)  People who run cattle often end up holding state offices, so their voices are heard, perhaps disproportionately.  I'm not suggesting a Democrat has never advanced legislation that might restrict grazing, or other restrictions, but out here they've sometimes managed to make clear they are on the side of preserving grazing land for longterm viability and sustainable agriculture.  Which ranchers very much desire.  The POTUS has zero interest in these matters and his SA beef dump is entirely performative, intended to somehow rebut the obvious inflationary effects his economic policies are having.  You can't fool Plains Republicans forever.

Any family or people who see it as a cultural touchstone are going to be culturally conservative and highly unlikely to vote Dem.
"Preserving grazing land" and other Dem policies usually translates to higher costs for ranchers.

...
Yet despite these challenges, many farmers remain supportive of Trump.

“As farmers because of tariffs we are hurting, however, for the long term if something doesn’t happen the country is going to fall,” one Nebraskan farmer told The Daily Wire. “He’s trying to make changes for the better.”

A farmer from southern Illinois echoed that sentiment. “I don’t think farmers are going to start voting Democratic. Under both the Biden and Trump administrations, we’ve dealt with low grain prices alongside higher diesel costs. Farmers have been squeezed by lower commodity prices and rising input costs. The difference today is that fertilizer costs are higher than they were under the last administration, but we’ve also received some relief through the Big Beautiful Bill’s Farmer Bridge Assistance Program. It’s not a cure-all, but it does help offset some of the pressure farmers are facing.”

The farmers’ views highlight the challenge facing Democrats. Farmers across the Midwest are experiencing real economic strain, but while the frustration is real, it has not translated into a mass movement towards the other side of the aisle.

NBC interviewed 13 Iowa farmers and found that while many were hurting from burdening rising costs, the majority said they don’t regret supporting Trump.
...
- https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrats-open-new-midterm-front-in-americas-heartland?author=Brecca+Stoll&category=News&elementPosition=undefined&row=0&rowType=Vertical+List&title=Democrats+Open+New+Midterm+Front+In+America%E2%80%99s+Heartland

9_9

(Aug 23, 2026 11:47 PM)TheVat Wrote: Well, South Dakota occasionally elects Democrats which, given voter registrations, means that some fairly conservative voters have crossed the aisle, at least for that candidate.  Iowa, our sorta neighbor, has transitioned from red to purple in the past decade, as it has borne the brunt of bad policies from the maga brigade.  Its open Senate seat is now a tossup, something formerly improbable.  I agree that there's now a fairly cultist group among Republicans that will support Trump even if it's self-harming.  I suspect Trump could piss on them and they'd insist it was a spa treatment.  

And, being married into a former ranching family, I know that preserving grazing land is important to them.  Drought years are heightening awareness of this - no one wants to keep herd sizes up when it means stripping forage acres to nothing and having to ship in hay from a thousand miles away.  That way lies ruin and bankruptcy.  Prairie conservation isn't partisan out here, at least not among family farms and ranches.  (Sure, some hedge fund manager could buy up land and try to stripmine profit from it for a couple years and then dump it when it turns to to barren waste - that's always a potential with late stage capitalism)