To tie our topics together, we turn first to a brief video by Ian Lustick, co-author with Eli Clifton of the new book, Israel’s Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power. In the video Lustick simply explains the main point of the book:

Israel’s Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power

The point of this book is to tell the American people that they have faced and are facing a danger from the Israel Lobby in the United States that doesn’t just compromise American interests abroad, but threatens American freedoms at home. The extremism that has marked Israeli politics, an increasing extremism for the last 20 years, has made it virtually impossible even for The Lobby to defend Israeli policies on their own terms in front of an American audience of any consequence. Put another way, the Lobby has found that it can’t win any actual arguments in public about whether Israeli policies are good or bad. So they only want to prevent arguments from being made. That in turn has resulted in Lobby activities which threaten the freedoms of Americans. What they’re fundamentally trying to do, those people in the Israel Lobby now, is to prevent debate about what is happening in Israel and between Israel and the Palestinians. That way they don’t have to defend Israeli policies because there is no discussion of them substantively. The United States over decades provided Israel with virtually unconditional political and economic support. The power of the Israel Lobby in the United States prevented presidents over and over again from pursuing policies toward Israel and the Palestinians and the Arabs that could have resulted in a reasonable two-state solution. In other words, the entire trajectory of Israeli democracy was powerfully shaped by the unintended consequences of the Israel Lobby’s overweening influence in the United States. That’s why I say that the major problem in the Middle East is an American domestic politics problem.

The great virtue of what Lustick is saying is that he counters those who like to say that our problem is with the Israeli government—as if it’s the Israeli government—the government of a small country thousands of miles away—that somehow controls the American government. No, this is a problem of American domestic politics. The Israel Lobby is an American lobby that controls the US government on behalf of their own perceptions of the goals of Jewish Nationalism. It is Jewish Nationalists right here in America who control our government, and they do it with money.

Yesterday Doug Macgregor made a similar point, including the important point that the same people are behind the war on Russia.

Col Doug Macgregor – Iran War: THE ART OF DEFEAT / We Have No Influence Over Iran

I think that Donald Trump should consider writing a new book. I think his last book was The Art of the Deal. He’s an expert now. He should sit down and write a book called The Art of Defeat because that’s what he’s mastered. We are defeated and nothing he does at this point is going to make any difference. The Iranians have made that very clear. That’s why they’ve said they have no intention of negotiating with this administration. They’ll wait until he leaves office presumably in 2029. I think he might go earlier. But having said that, they know that we are not governed per se by Donald Trump or the voice of the American people. These institutions and the people in them have all been purchased by the Zionist Jewish billionaires who are actually in control. And there’s no point in talking to them. You might as well try to talk to Netanyahu. And I think they know that’s a waste of time.

Well, Hoffman [former CIA] and Feinberg [current top DoD official] are both Israeli firsters. So, they’re going to find an excuse to do whatever is possible to pour more money into this war against Iran and for that matter into any conflict that is either anti-Russian, anti-Iranian, and for the most part anti-Muslim in anti-Islamic, let’s put it that way, in the region. We have no interest in that as a country. There’s no reason why we should be engaged in any of those things. So, let’s get that straight.

We’re watching this slow global fracturing and meltdown in the Western financial system. So, everybody will say, well, when’s it really going to break? Nobody really knows, but … people that I trust, … say it’s coming and it’s coming soon. I would think that President Trump is increasingly aware of that. If he wasn’t, he would never have said what he did in Paris. “I’m not going to end up like Herbert Hoover. I know the global economy could go into a depression. That’s why we must open the strait.” Well, obviously, he gets it. He understands.

So, we’re back to the critical question. Why isn’t Trump responding appropriately? Why is he essentially dragging us into a protracted war? Because people like Hoffman and Feinberg and others in the White House and on the Hill, want a protracted conflict. They don’t understand the consequences for us as a country, let alone the rest of the world. They’re only thinking about their interests and Israel’s, and their interests and Israel’s demand a protracted war. But we can’t do it. That’s the bottom line. I wonder how long it’s going to take before President Trump figures that out. Because you and I know there’s a lot of evidence for a lot of unhappy people in the armed forces right now who’ve had to live under miserable conditions at sea for months and months and months. You get at some point revolts, rebellions.

The bottom line is that it’s in the interests of the Jewish Nationalist agenda to control the foreign policy of the world’s Superpower. Most people imagine that Jewish Nationalists only care about Israel and Israel’s neighborhood—West Asia. Not true. Jewish Nationalists are interested in everything that can maintain their proxy—the United States—as a Superpower. So they’re interested in their Jewish war of revenge against Russia. They’re interested in seemingly insignificant countries like Honduras:

DD Geopolitics @DD_Geopolitics

8h

What’s going on in Colombia is a continuation of “Operation Condor 2.0.”

Below is our episode on Honduras and the drug trafficking president pardoned by Trump after a request from a “group of rabbis.”

And Columbia:

DD Geopolitics @DD_Geopolitics

Brad Parscale and Israel are also helping to create chaos in Latin America. We covered this yesterday with Larry Johnson.

They’re very interested in a country many (most?) readers have never heard of: Puntland. Puntland is the tip of the horn of the Horn of Africa. Until March of 2024 Puntland was part of Somalia, but then it refused to recognize the Somali government. Unlike Somaliland to its west, Puntland has so far not sought international recognition as an independent state:

Until March of 2024 Puntland was part of Somalia, but then it refused to recognize the Somali government. Unlike Somaliland, to its west, Puntland has so far not sought international recognition as an independent state. Somaliland’s efforts in that regard have been signally unsuccessful—it is only recognized by the rogue state of Israel. Not exactly a surprise.

The point of Puntland is that, as of August, the US is expanding it’s base at Bosaso, without a by your leave from the Somali government. Responsible Statecraft has two recent articles on this development. In the first of them, they note that this action appears not to be aimed at Somalia:

US military marching into Puntland as Red Sea tensions escalate

Though the agreement itself is vague, it signals a potential new direction in the Trump administration’s Horn of Africa policy. Experts say the driving force is the expansion of the Iran war into the Red Sea, not a reaction to events inside Somalia itself. But the move also risks deepening a rift between Mogadishu and the federal states it has long struggled to hold together.

American engagement with these states is not entirely new. Cameron Hudson, an analyst who previously served as director for African affairs at the National Security Council, told RS that the U.S. has used Puntland as a staging ground for operations inside Somalia for years, largely via an Emirati-run base in the port city of Bosaso.

“The United States probably now sees a longer term need to have a kind of wholly owned, wholly operated U.S. base in the region,” Hudson said, a move that likely indicates either an increase in military strikes within Somalia or part of a larger effort to combat growing threats in the wider region.

So, in other words, this development, long advocated by Neocons, is a repositioning of US resources in the long term war on Iran and Yemen. It also risks involvement in other regional wars in this very violent and turbulent area. That’s what the second article gets into:

How the Egypt-Ethiopia feud could upend Trump’s plans in Africa

The US has no plan for dealing with the complex rivalries that threaten its strategy in the region

What’s going on here—and it is complicated—is that the Neocons are trying to gain control over the west coast of the Red Sea, especially around the Bab el Mandab strait. But in doing this, by courting relatively small breakaway parts of countries, the Neocons are putting the US at odds with major countries that are also involved in the disputes—countries like Egypt (pop. 107 million) and Ethiopia (pop. 140 million). Again, the bottom line is that the Trump regime may be repositioning out of the Persian Gulf, but it is absolutely not giving up military operations in the region. It’s a question of finding more secure bases. Djibouti is probably considered uncomfortably close to Yemen, so Puntland it is. Neocons remain firmly in control of US foreign policy.

And that brings us to polling, because normal Americans are unhappy with Trump’s Jewish Nationalist inspired focus on foreign policy. In fact, (h/t Ray SoCa) Robert Barnes has demonstrated via polling data that Americans have never been enthusiastic about foreign adventuring.

Israel Now A Political Pariah In America

History of American Public Opinion of Israel

Yesterday Danny Davis did an interview with a close associate of Barnes, pollster Rich Baris. I’ve done an edited transcript of excerpts from that interview, which bear on the political impact of Trump’s betrayal of the Americans who voted for him. As you’ll see, it’s all very much tied together with Jewish Nationalist control over American politics and, especially, foreign policy. One thing that really fascinated me was Baris’ contention that Trump was blackmailed by “the Senate” (i.e., Senate leadership?) into the war on Iran. If true, I have to believe that that means the Senate was given its marching orders—including, no vote on war—by their Jewish Nationalist controllers. Think about that.

War & Americans What the Polls Reveal /Pollster Rich Baris & Lt Col Daniel Davis

We’ve hit a civilizational shakeup. Young people believe that institutions are hollow and systems are rigged. The old order feeds itself first and calls it governance while citizens get shafted. The youth have noticed and they aren’t going to take it anymore. If the right does not position itself for when this generational realignment happens, if they don’t position themselves to be the champion of this new majority, then they will be wiped out.

The anti-war component of the MAGA platform, the America First platform, is not just a throw in or a talking point. It is central to how Donald Trump put together his coalition and it is central to how Donald Trump wins states that other Republicans cannot win. And maybe, even if they do win, it’s a squeaker [for those other Republicans] when Donald Trump will win those states by 13 plus points.

Trump’s all-time high rating was posted about a month after he came into office and was doing incredible stuff that his coalition wanted him to do. But over time we started to see [chinks?] with the Epstein issue. It wasn’t [so much about] Epstein himself. [The Epstein issue] was a proxy issue for Donald Trump being the people’s retribution, taking that fight. That is what these voters wanted to see. All voters are important, but of course the most key component of that block was millennial men–millennial mind changers and first time voters are the reason Donald Trump won and won easily. What that chart shows is that the Epstein issue was a red flag for them. A flag that something might be going awry here. They didn’t like what they were seeing. “We’re supposed to have accountability. Where’s the retribution? Go after the ruling class.” The reason why Epstein was such a proxy was because he was the figure head of this ruling class that not only commits crimes against humanity, but rigs the system at their expense. It’s not just that the game is rigged in their favor. The game is rigged and they hurt me on purpose.

Trump got very frustrated and committed a serious political miscalculation. [In effect he said]: “If you care about this issue, you’re annoying me and I don’t want your support anymore.” That was more than just something that pissed [his voters] off. I think that’s the easier way to say it. And it’s not totally accurate. It disappointed them. It hurt them. That’s different. Betrayal is a deeper cut. You’re talking about betrayals and there’s something about the wound of a betrayal that just cuts deeper, stings longer, and takes longer to heal. And this was one after another. Right after that [Epstein betrayal], we got Operation Midnight Hammer, which they did not support. I’ve likened it to a one-two punch.

The reason some people were so vocal against Operation Midnight Hammer is because [it told us] The Lobby was in town. So the minute those bombs fell in Operation Midnight Hammer, we knew what this meant. This would eventually lead to a kinetic war. It would completely engulf and encompass the entire agenda of the Trump administration and that would be the end of the coalition. It has been completely wiped and you’re seeing these massive swings–20 to 35 points–away from where Trump was going into 2024.

This is a disaster. It’s an utter obliteration, but I still think had he done well with some of these other issues on accountability and the economy, it would not have fallen apart like this. The central focus on foreign policy instead of on the domestic agenda, which Trump frankly screwed up when he made several mistakes in the beginning of his term. Backing John Thune over Rick Scott, not going after the Senate, instead playing footsy with Lindsey Graham. Well, now Lindsey Graham is dead and so is Trump’s agenda. The Senate is done. They blackmailed him to be able to even pass the BBB. If no Operation Midnight Hammer, no BBB. So he should have taken on the Senate in the very beginning when he had the capital to do it. They would have had no choice but to capitulate to him. He was too popular. Now he’s squandered all of that political capital.

Fauci last week–that just burns voters even more. Republicans think these charades with these congressional hearings earn them points. It doesn’t. People look at a hearing like that and all they can think about is, ‘Damn it Trump! Why did you start this war instead of going after Anthony Fauci? Why did you start this war and not go after all the autopen nonsense? You know, we could have held these guys accountable.’ That’s what they think.

There are consequences for catering to a teeny tiny faction of your coalition at the expense of everybody else. There are consequences for that and, unfortunately, Trump will have to live with those consequences.

The Epstein issue was a complete layup for Trump and for Republicans. This is a candidate and a campaign and a presidency ultimately that had been telling Americans for almost 10 years that he wants to destroy all of your enemies. Destroy the Democratic Party, destroy the corporate media, destroy Wall Street, destroy the Deep State. Well, guess what? One person and one singular issue tied all of them together. Jeffrey Epstein. This was Donald Trump’s way to bludgeon every single one of his political enemies to political death in one fail swoop. And instead, Trump chose to protect people like who? Howard Lutnick?

Operation Midnight Hammer was the singular event that cost Republicans their lead on the generic ballot. It was the beginning of Donald Trump’s approval rating going negative significantly and then getting that resistance that every pollster sees when a president starts to go into that zone where the Strongly Disapprove starts to rise too much. When it gets to 40 it gets increasingly difficult to dig yourself out of your own grave. Operation Midnight Hammer was the beginning of that. Yet people gave him chance after chance after chance to course correct. And I think a big part of that is because they viewed Donald Trump as their last chance. Right before the Iran war, 70% opposed even launching the war and only 20% supported it. It was the most unpopular proposed military action that I’ve ever polled in my career, even during the Iraq war.

There is [another issue]. This is a self-governing society. Every president who wants to go to war must have the blessing of the American people. Why? Because if you get in a situation like we are in now, which Trump was told we would end up in, you can’t rely on a military solution if you don’t have the public on your side. And this is where Donald Trump finds himself because he decided that, unlike every other president in American history, he was going to launch a war without any period of trying or attempting to sell the war to the American public. We did polling on how many American casualties voters would be willing to tolerate in the name of the goals that were set out in the Iran war? Do you know what won? Zero. Zero casualties. Americans were not prepared to kill a single US serviceman or woman for this war. The threat was not there for them. 35% of the American public doesn’t even believe we have a right to tell other nations they can or cannot have a nuclear weapon.

You are not dealing with the post 911 electorate anymore. And these younger people that were so central to Trump’s coalition and have to be central to any right-wing coalition going forward, they’re very, very different. They don’t take government’s word for it. You tell them someone’s got a WMD, they tell you, “Stuff it. Show me evidence.” The lies over WMDs, the financial crisis, the COVID situation, Donald Trump’s a Russian asset they were told. They have heard one major lie after another that has been completely debunked now. They trust nobody. And I think what the right misunderstood is that just because your guy won doesn’t mean they’re going to trust him if he says that Iran’s going to get a nuke and and blow up Israel. Nobody believes that. Nobody. And just because you put Kash Patel at the FBI doesn’t mean they believe you are holding them accountable for the collusion hoax from Crossfire Hurricane. You have to earn that trust

I can tell you 100% that the president knew this war was unpopular and that the president knew the risks. I don’t think he really wanted to do it. But a couple of things were going on. We brought up before how Trump really did not take on the US Senate. It was a massive critical early term second term mistake—which I thought he would have learned from the first term—and he was more popular than he had ever been when he started the second term. So, he absolutely could have done it. But by that time he was already in this very difficult situation with Republican leadership in the Senate. It frustrated him because he couldn’t get some of his domestic agenda through. Like I said before, Trump gave them the ability to effectively politically blackmail him. And when the president was in this frustrated state, I think he looked at how he handled Venezuela. He’s being totally stroked by The Lobby. They’re telling him he’s great and he’s going to be the greatest president ever. ‘Look at what you did in Venezuela.’ Our intel told him it can’t be done. Our people told him, “We’ve war gamed this a million times. There’s something called the five-finger strategy. They’re going to bomb our allies in the region. The Gulf allies are going to be pissed. They’ll shut down the straight of Hormuz. This will be a complete quagmire.” He listened to the Israeli intel, which was not not even uniform on the Israeli side. That is what happened. And he listened to idiots like Lindsey Graham and Mark Levin.

Trump’s relationship with Israel is a whole other level worth looking into about why his coalition is where it is, because a lot of these voters just feel that Trump picked a foreign Lobby over them. He’s still stuck in Iran. It could work if Republicans weren’t a bunch of traitors who just passed the NDAA that effectively gave Israel an even more expanded special status and relationship with the US military. Israel got a much better deal [than foreign aid]. And again, I have to ask, why will Trump not do what seems politically beneficial for him? And he knows it. And the entire Republican Congress knows it. The entire Republican conference was briefed in on a series of polls and trends which included the polling we had talked about–that they had an Israel problem with anyone under 50. Well, guess what? It’s now anyone under like 62. And it just keeps getting worse. And I don’t mean anyone. It’s really right-wing voters. I’m talking about their own voters. Everyone else in the middle and on the left. Israel is a pariah at this point.

So the best thing Trump could do is kick Netanyahu to the curb. Kick the entire wing of that faction to the curb. I am telling you right now, these voters, these millennial voters particularly, will never ever join a coalition and sign up to be in the same coalition with Neocons ever again. Never again. They will never forgive Israel for hijacking their presidency, their last chance to turn their country around. It’s never going to happen. And Israel will just continue to get more unpopular as time goes on–and they effectively are a political pariah right now.

Q: What what does MAGA look like now? What has changed?

It’s shrunk and it basically regressed into older and whiter. You have about five to 7% overall that probably will vote for the Democrat. One out of five reliable Republican midterm voters don’t want to show up and they’re worried that they will just be missing from the electorate. That doesn’t even account for the group of people who never really were Republican, but they just voted for Trump. This is a five alarm fire. They have to wake people up, and just screaming about socialism isn’t going to work for the reasons I said it wouldn’t before they started this war. If you were really afraid of socialism and you plan to resurrect this argument, then your first priority would have been to preserve the integrity of the coalition to ensure it was a winning coalition. And then you could take care of business at home to prevent the socialists from taking over the country and destroying it. You would put that before the needs of a foreign nation. So now you just look like a bunch of inauthentic little liars because everyone can see it.

Nobody cares about Ukraine at all. The Russia scare is over, guys. Move on.

The last time there was a betrayal of this magnitude was in 1992. The “read my lips no new taxes” betrayal fractured the right into the Ross Perot coalition, and he won 20% of the vote. The right better thank god Tucker’s not running. This will make the Ross Perot coalition fracture look like a paper cut. This could be Perot on steroids. Vice President Vance, if he wants to be president, has got to fix this. They cannot sustain this. There’s just there’s no way they can afford to lose that much of their coalition and have any hope to win.