We do not have to accept war

Hey folks,

We do not have to accept a repeat of the 2002-2003 drumbeat for the war with Iraq.

As a high school student in Texas, that was my political awakening; I argued with classmates against the war and remember school walkouts across the country. I also remember this sense of dread and inevitability -- the war made no sense and also nothing was going to stop it.

Since Trump’s attack on Iran, I’ve heard a lot of comparisons to that time period, but I don’t think the analogy holds. War today isn’t inevitable, and Trump isn’t operating from a place of political strength -- but from a place of weakness, stupidity, and desperation.

Let’s get the historical analogy straight.

2025 is not 2003. GW Bush wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, but he had enormous political capital following September 11th -- and his team did the work to sell their war.

For months, Bush appointees made up lies about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). He tapped respected military leaders to sell the war to the public and on the international stage. He brought along a pliable press that propagandized for the war. And he pushed for and won congressional authorization of military force with significant Democratic support months before the war.

The warmongering public relations campaign paid off. Mainstream news outlets amplified GWB’s lies about WMDs. By the time he launched his invasion, Gallup found 72% of the public supported the war. School walkouts be damned.

Drumbeat? What drumbeat? That cynically and effectively executed build-up to the war with Iraq bears almost no resemblance to the events that led to Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional war against Iran this weekend.

The facts are damning. Trump launched an illegal, unconstitutional attack on a country that was not an imminent threat to Americans. It’s a reckless, criminal move that puts lives in danger, including Americans abroad and innocent people in Iran.

Trump did not seek to build support for any of this. He campaigned promising no war with Iran. He spent months pushing back against US involvement with Iran. His own Director of National Intelligence testified to Congress that Iran was nowhere near getting a nuclear weapon. There was no congressionally authorized use of military force. There was no campaign to bring onboard the media, international community, or the American public.

There was no drumbeat or crescendo -- just a sudden, loud, publicly out-of-touch boom.

And public opinion reflects that. As of this month, just 16% of Americans support the US military getting involved in Iran. And the American people are right -- this war only serves to make Iranians, Israelis, and all of us less safe.

True to form, that doesn’t stop Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu -- would-be authoritarians who seek to use war to cement their own hold on power. In peacetime, Trump nationalized the state guard in California and called out Marines on peaceful protestors in LA. Neoconservative Robert Kagan wrote in the Atlantic what anybody paying attention to Trump’s vicious anti-democratic escalations already knows: Trump will "use a state of war to strengthen his dictatorial control at home."

Trump is a weak leader, and we can push back a weak leader. Trump’s popularity is falling, public backlash is rising, and just last week his birthday parade was overshadowed by the historically enormous No Kings Day protests.

Trump may think starting a war makes him look strong -- but he’s wrong. It's the behavior of a wannabe monarch, not a president of a constitutional democracy. But two things are true: Yes Trump is a wannabe monarch, but he’s also an unpopular, lame duck president who feels threatened by organized people power. So he’s lashing out.

Trump is an incompetent leader with a crumbling powerbase. He’s trying to drag us into war while he slashes Medicaid, supercharges ICE deportation forces across the country, and cuts taxes for billionaires.

He doesn’t have public support for any of this. As terrifying as his actions are, he does not hold all the power here. The people can organize effectively against his illegal, unconstitutional, and unpopular actions. We can stop some of it, and limit the damage of what we can’t stop. And given the stakes right now, it’s never been more important to do so.

So please read on to this week’s action items for how you can play your role in doing that this week.

In solidarity,
Ezra Levin
Co-Executive Director
Indivisible