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SEEKING RATIONALITY AMONG REPUBLICANS PART 1
I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT I HAVE SOME REPUBLICAN FRIENDS. However, here I collect tidbits that suggest their leaders haven’t acted rationally. Examples abound, but three in particular come to mind: the Middle East war, the measles epidemic, and climate change.
October 7, 2023—A Day of Infamy. As noted by Wikipedia, “The October 7 attacks were a series of coordinated armed incursions from the blockaded Gaza Strip into the Gaza envelope of southern Israel, carried out by Hamas and several other Palestinian militant groups in 2023…. By July 2026 The Times of Israel reported that out of the estimated 5,000 participants, 1,500 were killed during the Gaza war, in addition to 1,200 who were killed during the October 7 attacks.”
A horrific attack, to be sure, with horrific deaths of non-combatants still going on.
The Trump/Netanyahu War. Wikipedia recounts, “Since 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel have been at war with Iran and its regional allies. Hostilities broke out after US–Israeli airstrikes killed several Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The strikes were launched amid ongoing US–Iran negotiations regarding Iran’s nuclear program.”
Wikipedia continues, “U.S. justifications for initiating the war included a response to the crackdown on anti-government protests in Iran, preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, regime change, and taking Iran’s oil and gas resources.”
“Critics,” Wikipedia notes, “have rejected these justifications, maintaining that the attack initiated a war of aggression, in violation of international law.”
International Law. I’m reminded of President Merkin Muffley’s admonishment in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb: “Gentlemen, you can’t fight here. This is a war room!”
To get a sense of warfare’s complex legality, see Michael N. Schmitt’s “Assassination in the Law of War,” Lieber Institute West Point, October 15, 2021; and Margot Donzé’s “Does International Law Prohibit the Assassination of State Leaders?,” Verfassungsblog on Matters Constitutional, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law, March 25, 2026.
Spoiler: The legality of warfare? “It depends.”
Any Rational End-Plan? “A crackdown on anti-government protests in Iran”? Ironically, see “State Funeral of Ali Khamenei,” Wikipedia, August 7, 2026. In particular, “The scale of the event aimed to demonstrate that the leadership had not only survived an existential conflict but remained a potent, borderless revolutionary force.”
Ditto for “a regime change.”
As for “preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” is the world any safer than after Obama’s July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action? See “What Is The Iran Nuclear Deal?,” Council on Foreign Relations, October 27, 2023.
Too soon to call, I’d say. And just how many Trumpian “obliterations” shall we accept as truth?
Last, as for “Iran’s oil and gas resources,” whoever would have guessed its actions with the Hormuz Strait??
I can answer that: See “On Straits and Narrows,” SimanaitisSays, July 27, 2019, (and note its date). Apparently neither Trump nor Hegseth was a reader.
A satellite view of the Hormuz Strait; Iran to the north, tiny Oman on the tip of the peninsula to the south. Image from NASA/GSFC via SimanaitisSays.
Tomorrow in Part 2, we examine RFK Jr.’s apparently shifting views on vaccinations and Trump’s absurdities concerning Mother Nature. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2026
Simanaitis Says 
Just a note : trump not only doesn’t read (well known fact) , he barely speaks the English language .
-Nate
We’ve all some GOP friends, a few of them otherwise lucid souls. Have yet to sway one. Something there is about the conservative soul, ingrained.
Facts, figures that don’t emanate from Fox “News” are always suspect with these folk. Some say they also watch CNN, etc. but when they talk, they always regurgitate Fox swill. It’d be funny were democracy not ravaged by Bratman and his toadies.
These Republicans would vote for a pet rock over any Democrat.
Tho’ many of us of a certain age decry the speeding of time, the midterms cannot come too soon. Ensure everyone else in your greater circle votes, because low voter turnout always favors the GOP, and we need a Dem rout, not just victory, else we continue this apparently inexorable slide to 1933 Germany.
As always, profound thanks, Dennis.
Nate, right y’are. A renowned linguist last year suggests Bratman’s speech mired on the third-grade level. This atop Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson’s and four-star Marine General Jim Mattis’s 2016 observation that Trumpty Dumpty has “the reading ability and understanding of a fifth- or sixth grader.” And that was an entire decade ago, when Orange Julius could finish a cohesive sentence, answer a question without looping off in mid-sentence.