Trump’s “No Foreign Wars” Posture Is at Odds With His “Ugga Bugga, Me Big Man” Posture
Which will win out?

***Hey! I plan to do I Might Be Wrong Komedy Klass next week, so, as always, you can send your comedy essay, sketch, short video, or whatever (not a novel, please) to KomedyKlass@imightbewrong.org. I’ll pick one piece to be the subject of our discussion, and everyone in the Klass has agreed to keep any negative feedback to themselves, because the internet is enough of a bile-producing craphole as it is.
There’s a rift in the Republican Party between the faction that wants America to become Wakanda Except White and the faction that wants America to forcibly retake our ancestral homeland between the Strait of Hormuz and the Alborz Mountains. That rift was on display in this exchange between Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz, and fair warning: You will probably end up siding with either Tucker Carlson or Ted Cruz in this clip. Only watch if you’re prepared to grapple with that.
On which side of this split is Trump? During the election, MAGA was convinced that Trump was on their side; the narrative was that Trump was fighting a hawkish, “neocon” foreign policy establishment exemplified by that stalwart foreign policy hawk, the person many call “The 21st century Otto von Bismarck”: Kamala Harris. That narrative has been challenged by a series of Trump social media posts that are the foreign policy equivalent of a dude pacing back and forth outside a bar shouting “YOU WANNA GO, BRO?” With Israel and Iran already at war and the possibility of US involvement increasing, many people are wondering: What is Trump thinking?
Personally, I don’t think that Trump is thinking anything. The word “thinking” implies higher function; it involves reason and foresight, and I don’t think that Trump is capable of either. I think the closest Trump gets to thinking is a lower-order impulse, more of a reaction to stimuli than thought — Trump’s “thinking” is like when a hagfish secrets a cloud of slime to fend off an attack. But that doesn’t mean that Trump’s slime cloud can’t be studied — it just means that we have to think of it as a series of reactions rather than steps in a coherent strategy.
Trump’s first political opponent was Jeb Bush. Though hilarious in hindsight, most people in 2015 thought that Jeb Bush — named Man Of The Century by People To Picture To Delay Orgasm magazine — would roll to the nomination. The Bushes, of course, are associated with Iraq wars the way the Wayans are associated with low-budget raunch comedies, so Trump attacked the Iraq War even though he appeared to be for it when it happened. Trump’s last primary opponent was Ted Cruz, another foreign policy hawk, and then he faced Hillary Clinton — who voted for the Iraq War as a Senator — in the general election. Maybe Trump has a strong ideological aversion to over-projection of American force; maybe he’s internalized George Kennan’s late-career thoughts on the dangers of foreign policy overreach. Or maybe Trump railed against the Iraq War because it let him point to his opponents and yell “YOU’RE DUMB!!!” I guess we’ll never know.
There were hints in Trump’s first term that he might not be a total peacenik. Trump accelerated the war against ISIS, dropped the “Mother Of All Bombs” in Afghanistan, and assassinated Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. The Soleimani strike is largely forgotten because it came right before Covid, but there was a brief moment of US-Iranian sabre rattling before we all suddenly prioritized hoarding toilet paper and watching Tiger King. Trump has also consistently pushed for larger military budgets, which doesn’t make a ton of sense if you’re just going to park a B-2 bomber in the driveway and go: “sick”. Trump’s love for peace seems to mostly only apply to Ukraine, where “peace” is a euphemism for “don’t fight back while Russia wages war”.
Trump’s general disposition also suggests aggressive impulses. How many peace-loving hippies do you know who cream their jeans at the thought of a military parade? How many dyed-in-the-wool pacifists frequently use the military as a political prop and invent stories in which five-star generals call them “sir”? I’m not in a position to psychoanalyze Trump, but I don’t think it’s psychoanalyzing to say that he shows a need to dominate people. And that’s not consistent with a commitment to peace; that’s consistent with escalating fights to prove that you’re a big, tough manly man with an acceptable-to-good penis.
Personally, I see no reason for major US involvement in Iran. I share German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’ assessment that Israel is “doing the dirty work” for the rest of the world (though I’d remind Chancellor Merz that freeriding works best when you don’t call attention to it). Regime change in Iran would be nice, but that’s a statement like “It would be nice to find a box of diamonds on the bus” — yes, that would, indeed, be nice. But going to war to overthrow the Iranian government would be a disaster on several levels. So, here we are: Our best play is probably to shut the fuck up and hope that Israel sets back Iran’s nuclear program without too much collateral damage, and possibly sell Israel military equipment if it’s absolutely essential. Plus I, personally, will mutter “you never should have ripped up the Iran Deal” under my breath every ten minutes until this conflict is over.
But I worry that Trump’s need for dominance will escalate the conflict. We’re already in a war of words with Iran, and it’s already gotten unbelievably phallic — this video circulated on social media yesterday, purporting to be from Iranian state TV:
If that’s real, it seems impossible to argue that this isn’t, on some level, about penises — every time I watch that clip, I think the nuke is going to cum. The whole situation with men and dominance and penises and war is hard to unravel, but we all know that there’s a connection between violence and being a big, dumb goon. Trump is certainly a big, dumb goon. And I worry that his big, dumb goon-ness will lead us into a conflict that we could have avoided.
If we assume that Trump’s only real belief is “Trump good”, his actions make sense. His first opponents were hawkish, so he took dovish positions to make them look bad. But Trump’s commitment isn’t to peace; his commitment is to proving that he’s the most kick-ass dude in the world. That requires that he bluster and bluff like a gorilla beating his chest and smashing rocks with his dong, which is what he’s doing now. Iran should do what countries usually do in response to Trump’s threats, which is to let him shoot his mouth off, and then come back later with pissant non-concessions that allow Trump to say “I won!” Unfortunately, Iran might not be smart enough to do that — remember that they’re only in this mess due to strategic miscalculation that makes Disney look like a bunch of geniuses. The situation is not great. And if Trump follows his impulse to prove what a big, powerful man he is, it could get much worse.
What, In Theory, Is Tulsi Gabbard's Job?
Yesterday, Trump had this to say about Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear program:
I Want Zohran Mamdani to Become Mayor of New York So That I Can Watch His Dumb Government Grocery Stores Fail
The New York mayoral race reminds me of nothing so much as this classic video:
When People To Picture To Delay Orgasm To Magazine stole the idea from Time and had that strip of aluminum foil on the cover under the headline "YOU" - I gotta say, it stung.
Not only does Trump play Mr. Opposite so he can say “You suck!” and not only does he enjoy playing games of dominance: he is also very susceptible to flattery, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Netanyahu is continually telling him “Oh, Mr. President, you are the manliest man who has ever held the office of President. But do you know what would make you the manliest man who ever lived? That’s right, if you unleash a bunker buster bomb or two on Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility.”