Sarah Longwell: No One Should Trust this Government

What It Covers

Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell analyze the U.S. war with Iran, covering rising oil prices near $120 per barrel, seven American military deaths, the Trump administration's refusal to acknowledge legal war status, Israeli influence over U.S. war decisions, government credibility failures including a bombed Iranian school, and voter sentiment shifts among Biden-to-Trump voters.

Key Questions Answered

• •Oil price threshold: When oil hits $100 per barrel, every consumer product in America must reprice. Diesel jumped from $3.69 to $4.99 per gallon within one week of the Iran conflict escalating. Gas prices function as a political billboard — voters notice them constantly and use them as their primary metric for evaluating whether a war is worth supporting, overriding concern about casualties.
• •Trump's information isolation: Trump receives political data filtered through MAGA-only sources. Advisers report cabinet members privately praise him as the greatest leader of all time rather than delivering honest assessments. He operates on Truth Social, insulated from criticism. The approval number he circulates internally — 98% support among self-identified MAGA Republicans — is structurally designed to exclude dissenting data entirely.
• •Israel's strategic bet: Netanyahu appears to be executing a calculated window strategy — using Trump's presidency to neutralize regional adversaries before a potential 2029 Middle East realignment with UAE and Saudi Arabia. The risk: U.S. public support for Israel has dropped below 50% for the first time in recorded polling history and continues declining as the Iran conflict expands and civilian casualties mount.
• •Voter coalition fracture: Biden-to-Trump swing voters — the margin that delivered the 2024 election — are expressing opposition to the Iran war in focus groups. They cite Iraq/ISIS precedent, unclear regime-change succession plans, and Trump's explicit anti-interventionist campaign promises. These voters were recruited on "no new wars" messaging and now feel directly contradicted, making them the most politically volatile segment heading into midterms.
• •Government credibility collapse: The administration attributed a school bombing in southern Iran to Iranian munitions, but open-source analysts at Bellingcat identified the weapon as a U.S. Tomahawk missile — a system Iran does not possess. Simultaneously, DHS accused 279 people of attacking federal officers; 90 American citizens faced no charges whatsoever, indicating fabricated accusations. Both cases establish a pattern of systematic public deception across military and domestic enforcement.
• •JD Vance's political exposure: Vance built his 2028 positioning by bridging MAGA and America First factions — a coalition now fracturing along pro-war and isolationist lines. Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly oppose the Iran war for strategic political reasons tied to post-Trump futures. Every pro-war statement Vance makes gets archived as opposition research against his existing flip-flopper reputation, documented in focus groups as a primary voter concern about his trustworthiness.