As I noted yesterday regarding the reflecting pool debacle, Trump is constantly trying to create his own reality. This can have effects in the broader population because, as we know, partisan allies have deep motivations to rationalize what their team’s leader is saying. Plus, most people don’t have the tools to effectively evaluate what they are being told, and use elites and party affiliation to filter what they accept.
I keep thinking about Jason Stanley’s book, How Fascism Works. Does this sound familiar? From pages 58-59:
Fascist politics exchanges reality for the pronouncements of a single individual, or perhaps a political party. Regular and repeated obvious lying is part of the process by which fascist politics destroys the information space. A fascist leader can replace truth with power, ultimately lying without consequence. By replacing the world with a person, fascist politics makes us unable to assess arguments by a common standard. The fascist politician possesses specific techniques to destroy information spaces and breakdown reailty.
Here’s a doozy from this morning.
The whole thing is a mess, but the lie that jumped out at me this morning when I heard this reported on NPR was the bit about “The Money and/or Sanctions” (why the caps?) being used to buy food and medicine “exclusively” from the US is just not in the MOU and, thus far, in no a formal agreement of any kind.
Also: “This is a humanitarian crisis, and I feel it is necessary to help,” said the arsonist who burned down the neighborhood.
Fox News provides the whole MOU here: READ IT: The full text of the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding. The outline is pretty clear that Iran is supposed to get total sanctions relief (a huge win for them, BTW) as well as a $300 billion reconstruction fund. There are no strictures on those funds and nothing whatsoever about food and medicine.
Barring some formal agreement that is far stronger than the language in the MOU, Iran is about to have a lot of money it can use to rebuild whatever it wants, including military capabilities.
It should be noted that, in terms of what they have said, Iran has already committed to not pursuing a nuclear weapon. It seems worth noting that, at least in terms of making declarations, Iran has previously stated it would not pursue a nuclear weapon. Whether one believes them or not, the reality is that it was not necessary to go to war to get them to make such a declaration.
It also seems worth noting that there was a robust inspections regime under the JCPOA. While Trump will now, no doubt, go on and on about “Nuclear Honesty,” the reality (as opposed to the unreality he tries to spin) is that currently, there is nothing concrete in place.
It seems worth noting that the JCPOA took roughly two years to negotiate. Color me skeptical that Vance, Kushner, and Witkoff will be able to whip up a better replacement in 60 days.
Allow me to remind us all that this was the same core brain trust that was negotiating before the bombing started.
I know a lot of supported and casual observers will fall for Trump’s unreality, but the truth remains that the US is massively worse off than before we attacked, and any “deal” we get will be worse than what we could have gotten before the war, which would have been worse than what we had with the JCPOA.
Elect incompetents, get incompetence.
That’s just reality.
