I remain skeptical that Donald Trump can actually end the Iran war. But I also hope I’m wrong and the current memorandum of understanding — which falls far short of a “deal” — will be enough to wind this down. 

This is, of course, a whole lot like the 2020 election: Trump lost, but he’ll declare victory anyway. The only question is whether he can fool people with that lie. Even MAGA will struggle to play along, as multiple Republican leaders are criticizing Trump for giving Iran $300 billion, which could break through the Fox News bubble. 

If the larger public understands that Trump is writing Iran a $300 billion check, it will be harder for him to lie about it. The winners in a war don’t give a concession that big, folks. 

This war was an expensive disaster, but it’s good if Trump’s move to walk away actually sticks. The war was unwinnable from the get-go, so the sooner it’s over, the better. It’s also a heartening sign that despite Trump’s best efforts to destroy us, the U.S. is still a democracy. For all its flaws — as with half-literate podcast bros getting this dumbass elected — democracy is still the best form of governance there is. 

This war wouldn’t be over if we weren’t a democracy. Trump dragged it out for months because his ego could not allow him to admit he was losing badly. It was only growing public pressure that forced him to give up. He tried to say that public opinion had no effect on him, claiming that he loves the inflation and doesn’t care about Americans' financial predicament. B ut eventually, he had to yield to public will. 

Contrast this with what is going on with Russia’s war on Ukraine. It’s been more than four years since President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine, making the same foolish bet Trump did that a bigger military meant an easy win. Russia has lost nearly 10 times as many soldiers as Ukraine, an estimated half a million casualties. But Putin is a dictator who’s in no danger of losing elections. So he can keep pushing, refusing to admit it’s not working even as the death toll continues to rise. 

As terrible as all this is, we should have hope. Democracy is very much alive. So much so that Trump and Republicans are looking to put the blame for this fiasco on JD Vance, which suggests they always thought he was likely to lose in 2028 anyway. Which, as I must note, is exactly what I predicted would happen back in March. 

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Speaking of Vance, he’s currently promoting “Communion,” his dumb book about his conversion to Catholicism in 2019, which right around the time Peter Thiel was spending a lot of money trying to make the “trad-Cath” movement the new cool right-wing trend. That didn’t work out, and unsurprisingly, Vance tends to avoid the word “Catholic” on his book tour, preferring to talk about himself as a “Christian,” which is a nondenominational tic common to white evangelicals. 

Vance’s book and tour are about advancing a phony redemption narrative, where he supposedly abandoned his blind ambition for Christian humility. Since he still tells lies every single day for Trump, this is obviously crap. For that matter, he also tells lies in service of this narrative. In his book and on “The View,” for instance, he portrays his jibe about “childless cat ladies” as an one-off impulse he’s since come to regret. 

That one is laughably easy to debunk. In July 2024, Media Matters found at least 14 instances of Vance attacking people who don’t have kids as “miserable,” “sociopathic,” “deranged” and, yes, as “cat ladies.” He argued repeatedly that childless people have no “stake” in the country. 

“Cat ladies” wasn’t an impulsive comment. It was an entire argument, starting from the premise that it’s impossible to care about another human being who isn’t your own child, which is far more sociopathic than anything said by the people he’s attacking. Worse, he’s saying this in service of the Republican agenda, which involves stripping other people’s children of healthcare, food and education. 

Vance clearly doesn’t care about children or the future. These are glib justifications for what truly pisses him off: feminism. He sees motherhood as a way to pull women out of the workplace and make them dependent on men. It’s why he often smirks triumphantly when talking about how he finally convinced his wife to leave her job so she could devote herself to serving him full-time — and have a fourth child at his request. 

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