Yesterday, Iowa House Republicans were informed by their own pollsters that if you are in a +15 district you’re within the margin for error, if you’re in a +10 district you’re underwater, and that this might end being an even worse midterm environment than 2006. I slept on whether to share this publicly, because I don’t want to cause anyone to black pill. But this morning I ultimately decided the truth should be shared while there is still six weeks left to do something about it for the good of the country. Because if the environment is this bad in my home state, where Trump has been the most popular political figure over the last decade, I can’t imagine where it is everywhere else. Whatever we’re doing or not doing in Iran/Hormuz has become a 2020 Covid lockdown level of political albatross. This is approaching TARP bailout levels of unpopular in my home state. We are risking what’s left of the Trump presidency on this, because if Democrats take control the legislative branch the Trump domestic agenda we all voted for will largely cease between what a Democrat Congress will do and the courts have already been doing. Not to mention what it will cost individual states like my own, which we have worked so hard to make so red these last 20 years (with Trump’s help). This whatever/kinda/sorta/but not really war has become an existential misuse of political capital. Many of us never thought it was worth it, and more and more it appears voters agree. We have to save our own country and our own way of life first before we can save anyone else. We have to save America before we can save the world. If a plane is endangered, you are told to put on your mask first otherwise you’re of no use to help save anyone else. I desperately want us to win. I desperately want this presidency to fulfill all the great promise it had coming out of the 2024 election. But whatever this currently is, isn’t it. We don’t have to just sit here and take the L. It doesn’t have to end this way. We can still win. There’s plenty of ammunition to hammer the Democrats with. We need the president out on the stump asap. We need better and way more aggressive messaging. Stop running fake and gay ads about how often so-and-so shows up for votes, and instead mercilessly hammer Democrats on the wickedness they’re voting for. Articulate specifically what the mission/victory is in Iran/Hormuz, because out here in the cheap seats it feels like another Middle East War quagmire regular folks are paying for on both ends all over again. And for heaven’s sake, make sure Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are getting the finest healthcare in America.