War With Iran Will Not Win Trump the Election
It’s a time-honored trick for desperate presidents, but it won’t work this time
By Janani Mohan
As a child of the 2000s, I can’t remember a time when America was not at war. I grew up thinking that conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan was the norm. I’d see photos of the war heroes from my hometown who died in the Middle East. And while I’m too young to remember 9/11, many people around me still felt it deeply. That may help explain why in 2004, during the first election I can remember, a president who was tanking the economy and violating human rights still won.
America has always had a certain recipe for winning elections: Start a war. Blame the adversary. Throw in some “decisive strikes.” James Madison won reelection during the War of 1812, and since then, presidents have never lost their reelection campaigns during wartime (Lyndon Johnson did decline to run for a second term because of the unpopularity of Vietnam). And despite a failing economy and his approval rating on a downward trend, President George W. Bush won a second term in 2004 at the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.
Of course, President Donald Trump himself is aware of this recipe. In the lead-up to the 2012 elections, he tweeted:
