Greetings and welcome to this 102nd staging of the Carnival of Fools! We’re certainly no less foolish down here for having spun our act 102 times in a row, only nearly two years older and infinitely more grizzled. (On the other hand, boy, have we learned to twirl with the best of ’em.)
The “primary beat” this summer has been a fun one, but there’s no need to spend much time on the cranks and fools running — soon to be dispatched — in Florida today. What can I say? I may lack confidence in Byron Donalds as the GOP’s gubernatorial choice, but I’d still like to extend a hearty Carnival congrats to candidate James Fishback for being such a sub-mediocre internet antisemite that he didn’t even rate a mention in these pages during his entire misbegotten political career. (At least you tried, Jimmy.) In Florida’s 19th district, there are approximately 17 ex-congressmen or failed candidates vying for Donalds’s open (and safe) House seat, and only two of them have previously lost elections in Illinois. (One has been endorsed by President Trump!)
The real excitement will be later in September, as the calendar turns us northeast and we find out whether crazy ol’ Ed Markey is still woke enough for the kids in Massachusetts. But let us pause for a moment, while we’re not being buffeted about by DSA hijinks or crazed populist antics in Democratic primaries, to take stock of . . . this mess we’re in.
Iran — Iran So Far
As it happens, Monday was another big day of note: the 60-day deadline for President Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran. You know, the one that was supposed to buy us a window to tidily resolve that whole “self-inflicted quagmire in the Middle East” thing that Trump swore he’d avoid yet somehow managed to stumble into — again. To mark the occasion (and with no deal in sight), Trump idly responded by threatening to bomb Oman, a third party guilty primarily of being located across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran. Then he went back to grumbling about Fox News’ coverage of his “Military Complex/Ballroom site.”
Don’t worry, Trump won’t bomb Oman. He won’t do much of anything except whine on Truth Social about how strong he is. Because, in truth, Trump is a patsy, a bad businessman; an easily duped stooge currently being fleeced by Persians far more sophisticated about geopolitical realities than he is, with the patience to match. As I have only occasionally pointed out in these pages since late February — because nobody wants to read it and I don’t want to write it — the Iran war is an episode of modern American history comparable in its shame only to the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979. . . . and look at that common denominator.
Only when Trump is gone from office will the Republican Party feel comfortable acknowledging most of this — which is why Trump’s presidential legacy will be a fraught one even for those who are currently his biggest defenders, regardless of what he does or has done domestically. (The executive orders we cheered will be repealed on Day One of the next Democratic administration, alas. The undoing of the tariff regime will follow soon after that — this I’ll approve of. And as a compromise to please everyone, the scaffolding will finally come off the façade of the Kennedy Center.)
Americans don’t forgive presidents who lose wars — wars of arrogant choice, no less. And American history has rarely seen a bigger military loser than hapless chump Trump. Whoever comes after him (from either party) will be forced by simple reality to repudiate him — unless he or she wants to make a case to the voters for the wisdom of handing permanent control of the Strait of Hormuz to our sworn enemies, which is what the president has done. (Don’t worry, Donny — surely that peace agreement is just another 60-day memorandum away.)
I try to cope with all of this — with the unavoidable disgrace of it all, which we are permitted to wave away by virtue of our American cultural bubble but will have downstream effects worldwide — by adopting a Marty Feldman mindset: It could be worse — it could be November.
And soon it will be.
The GOP Faces Hard Odds in November
It’s time to square up with you, the readers of the Carnival of Fools, because we need to take at least one of these sleepier weeks to set the scene for what I anticipate comes next — and best to not delay until a week before November 3. If the polls are anything to go by, Republicans are going to get slaughtered nationally, up and down the ballot, on Election Day this year. Not all of them — I hold out hope in some specific races, such as Michigan’s Senate contest — but in general and in the aggregate, it’s going to be a red harvest.
Midterms are almost always a walloping for the party in power. Now with Trump, we have, for the first time, a president whose every move seems designed to destroy Republican prospects at a time of populist unease and outrage. It is only small consolation that his Democratic opponents, who are busy setting themselves on fire in response to this historic opportunity, cannot even agree on whether they stand for merely the overthrow of the president or of the U.S. Constitution and capitalism as well.
The target grows fatter by the day. Trump currently sports a 39.2–58.4 number in the RealClearPolitics polling averages, for a cool negative 19.2 percent job approval rating nationwide. In the most recent Michigan polling, he sits at 33 percent approval. In Wisconsin, it’s 40–58. In Texas — good ol’ blood-red Republican Texas! — he’s at 45–54. In Iowa, he’s at 43 percent, with nearly every single member of the state’s congressional delegation set to be kicked to the curb this November. Things are a tick better, perhaps, in Ohio — but it hasn’t helped either gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy or incumbent Senator Jon Husted, who have found themselves swimming in far deeper and more turbulent electoral waters than either would have predicted in 2024.
Maybe all the polls are bad. Maybe there is a hidden resiliency within the American electorate, one repelled by the cultural impulses of the left. Maybe voters will simply refuse en masse to ratify the Democratic Party even as they reject Trump, because people as demented as the Democrats must be denied power on first principles alone. (It reminds me of my father’s reason for voting Republican since 1994: “It’s not even that I want them to win so much as I want to see Democrats lose.”) Good luck — and I am being both cynical and incomparably sincere when I say that.
Trump is certainly depending on this slim reed of hope — and history offers a weird sort of precedent for this outcome: In the 2022 midterms, the out-party (GOP) underperformed in House as well as Senate races because the party holding the White House (the Democrats) successfully scared enough swing voters off the fence and onto their side. Now, those with a keen eye for history may spot the problem with using that playbook in 2026. But we’ll find out on the other side, whether we want to or not.
What happens when you toss something as sharply cut and crafted as a ballroom chandelier out of something as high as the Skydeck of the Sears Tower? Nothing — at first. In fact, the glass almost looks graceful as it plummets through the air, reaching terminal velocity as it spirals ever downward to the ground. In those moments, it remains beautiful, intact, and unspoiled. Until it hits the ground — and those below it.
But worry not. After this is all over, someone else is going to come and clean it up, born and raised for the job. Someone always does.
Until next week.