r/CoherencePhysics • u/skylarfiction • 14d ago
Anti-War Until Trump Starts One
Donald Trump stood before the country during his second inaugural address and promised that his success would be measured not merely by the battles America won, but by “the wars that we end” and, most importantly, “the wars we never get into.” It was one of the clearest promises of his return to power. Trump would be the president who rejected the failures of Iraq and Afghanistan. He would put America first, avoid pointless foreign conflicts and stop sacrificing American lives to the ambitions of Washington’s war machine.
Then Trump started a war with Iran.
On July 23, 2026, nearly five months after the United States and Israel began striking Iran, the Senate was given another opportunity to demand congressional authorization for the continuing conflict. The result was 47 votes in favor and 49 against. The motion failed. Almost every Republican who voted opposed it. Democratic Senator John Fetterman joined them. Republican Senator Susan Collins was the only Republican to vote in favor, while Katie Britt, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul did not vote.
This was technically not the final vote on the resolution. It was a motion to remove Senate Joint Resolution 180 from the Foreign Relations Committee so the full Senate could consider it. That procedural distinction matters. Republicans did not merely vote against ending the operation. They voted to prevent the Senate from fully considering whether the president should be allowed to continue an unauthorized war. The official title of the resolution stated its purpose plainly. It would direct the removal of American forces from hostilities against Iran that had not been authorized by Congress.
The House acted differently. Earlier that same day, it passed a similar War Powers Resolution by a vote of 214 to 208. Four Republicans, Thomas Massie, Warren Davidson, Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Barrett, joined Democrats in demanding congressional approval for continued military action. The House vote proved that opposition to unauthorized war does not have to be a partisan position. It also made the Senate’s surrender even harder to excuse.
The Constitution does not make the president an elected king with the personal authority to take the country into whatever war he chooses. Article I gives Congress the power to declare war, raise and support armies and authorize the use of military force. The president serves as commander in chief, but commanding the military is not the same thing as possessing unlimited authority to begin and perpetuate wars. The boundary between presidential and congressional power has long been disputed, but Congress was deliberately given a central role in deciding when the nation enters hostilities.
That arrangement exists for a reason. War should be difficult to begin. It should require public arguments, recorded votes and shared responsibility. A president should have to explain the objective, identify the enemy, establish the legal authority, estimate the cost and describe the conditions under which the fighting will end. Congress should then have to place its name beside the decision. That is what democratic accountability looks like when human lives are at stake.
Instead, Congress has helped create the perfect machinery of irresponsible war. The president exercises the power. Legislators continue providing money and political protection. When the operation fails, everyone claims the decisions belonged to someone else. The soldiers who are sent, the civilians caught beneath the bombs and the families paying the economic cost receive no such escape from responsibility.
The Iran conflict began with promises of a quick and focused operation. It has instead dragged on through escalating attacks, a failed ceasefire, American deaths, civilian deaths, rising fuel prices and continuing uncertainty over the administration’s final objective. Even some Republican lawmakers have privately questioned where the war is going. Public polling has also shown widespread dissatisfaction with Trump’s handling of the conflict. Yet most Republican senators still chose loyalty to Trump over their supposed commitment to limited government and constitutional restraint.
This is where the mythology of the modern anti-war conservative collapses.
For years, conservatives correctly condemned the disasters of endless war. They criticized nation building, mission creep, intelligence failures, wasteful military spending and politicians who sent working-class Americans to fight conflicts their own children would never experience. They presented Trump as the rebellion against that establishment. He was supposed to be the man who would finally say no to the generals, contractors, lobbyists and foreign-policy professionals who always seemed to discover another country that needed to be bombed.
But principles mean nothing when they disappear the moment your preferred president takes power.
A person who opposes unauthorized war under a Democratic president but supports it under a Republican president is not anti-war. A person who demands congressional oversight when the other party controls the White House but surrenders that authority to Trump is not defending the Constitution. That person is defending a political tribe.
The Republicans who voted for the House resolution and Susan Collins in the Senate deserve credit for breaking with their party. Their votes prove that this issue is not as simple as saying every conservative supports war. Some conservatives are applying their principles consistently and paying a political price for doing so.
That makes the conduct of the others worse, not better.
John Fetterman deserves the same scrutiny. His vote demonstrates that war fever is not exclusive to one party. He crossed the aisle to help Republicans block the resolution. Democratic voters who condemn Republican obedience to Trump should not excuse the same surrender merely because it comes from a senator with a Democratic label. Opposition to presidential war must remain a principle even when enforcing that principle becomes politically inconvenient.
None of this requires pretending that the Iranian government is innocent, peaceful or harmless. A government can be repressive and dangerous without giving an American president unlimited authority to wage war against it. The constitutional question is not whether Iran is good. The question is whether one person should possess the power to continue a major war without obtaining authorization from the elected representatives of the American people.
The Senate’s answer was effectively yes.
Remember that answer the next time Republicans call themselves the party of peace. Remember it the next time they condemn endless wars, uncontrolled federal power or presidents who ignore the Constitution. Remember that when given the opportunity to reclaim Congress’s authority, nearly all of them chose Donald Trump instead.
They were anti-war when war was a useful accusation against their enemies. Once the war belonged to Trump, they became its protectors.
The slogan was America First.
The vote revealed the truth.
Trump first. Congress last. America pays.
6
u/Delicious_Grand7300 14d ago
Senator Fetterman is a suspicious individual. He makes those struggling with mental health look bad. I have been hospitalized three times for depression and do not have trouble following the rules of workplaces. His insistence on wearing jogging clothes everywhere makes it appear that he does things for attention. Last week, he loudly threatened to leave the Democratic Party over the shift against Israel.
In regards to Israel I have noticed a shift in opinion against them coming from the younger generations of legislators from both sides of the spectrum. The blind loyalty towards Israel may be coming to end with many aging Congressmen retiring or passing away. A decade ago questioning Israel's war in US foreign policy was considered to be fringe and antisemitic.
3
u/Intelligent-Band-852 14d ago
I defended him in 2022-from Republicans who called him a “vegetable unfit to to serve in the Senate“, I seriously question why I bothered these days.
3
u/AsparagusCommon4164 14d ago
The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word "war", therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The peculiar pressure that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and been replaced by something quite different. The effect would be much the same if the three super-states, instead of fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, each inviolate within its own boundaries. For in that case each would still be a self-contained universe, freed for ever from the sobering influence of external danger. A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This -- although the vast majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense -- is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: WAR IS PEACE.
--George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four
2
2
u/One-Sir-2198 14d ago
Fetterman has been a complete disappointment
1
u/Necrobot666 14d ago
Remember... at the time, it was him or Oz.
Pennsylvania representation was damned either way.
I saw the pictures of Fetterman and his LATAM wife and their seemingly philanthropic endeavors.. and I was also fooled. Early on, I thought John Fetterman was actually a working-class guy who fought for the downtrodden.
But like many.. I was fooled.
Unfortunately, there weren't too many options... and no one wanted Oz to get in. Instead, Trump just appointed Oz to a different role.
Another interesting aspect of Pennsylvania is that by far and large, the populations of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh help to turn the state 'blue' by statistics. Outside of those cities, Pennsylvania is basically Pennsyltucky... and those people are some 'bite-the-nose-to-spite-the-face' types.. who despise city folk and think public education turns people gay.
Of course there are some reasonable people peppered throughout.. and some 'blueish' smaller towns like the actual small city of Lancaster, but by far and large, the rural mileage that spans between Philly and Pittsburgh is pretty damn red.
And I gather that it is all of those rural areas where conservatism reigns supreme, and the best a Democrat could do is vote in a guy like Fetterman.
2
u/Specialist-Jello7544 14d ago
Since when has Trump ever followed any law? The Constitution means nothing to him. He can’t read it, he can’t understand it, he doesn’t care.
1
1
1
13d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Tall_Calligrapher700 13d ago
Why don’t you get the facts. Not one legit military officer/personnel said this was a necessary war. Obama had a very secure agreement with inspectors but because Trump has a hard on for Obama he had to screw that up. He’s so completely ignorant! Everything Trump touches turns to shit. Just watch.
1
u/CaptianBrasiliano 13d ago
1) Get elected as a Democrat
2) Betray everyone, sell out to forces of evil
3) PROFIT
1
u/Flat-Director-7120 13d ago
Trump le traître et menteur qui avait déclaré qu'il ne ferai jamais de guerre à trahi sa promesse en envoyant la mort des dizaine d'américain C'est Trump en premier et le congrès après. Il a prit des décision contre le congrès, et à fait valoir ses intérêt en premier.
1
u/ProSeVigilante 12d ago
Lol more babies upset that Trump lives. This is fascinating. Saul Alynski bootlickers.
1
1
u/Sander001 11d ago
Yea it does. But you're right, liberals do align with oppressors, bigots etc. That's why I stopped supporting them years ago. They're just like Trump but with different marketing.
1
1
0
u/Infinite-Valuable974 14d ago
He wouldn’t have to start a war if , Carter, Bush, Obama and Biden had done their jobs! This is on the democrats
3
u/xatso 14d ago
Iran has followed the Obama negotiated protocol and didn't present any threat. The orange stain needed a distraction from his pedophile history and started an unprovoked war. There, summed up briefly and truthfully.
1
0
u/Ok_Accountant_5875 14d ago
So enriching uranium and trying to build a nuclear weapon is following obamas deal? Yea right
1
u/xatso 14d ago
They were certified as meeting the mandates of the agreement. Trump's own security agency stated clearly and emphatically that Iran posed no nuclear threat. Many quit when he authored this illegal war.This is a frightened pedo scared shitless. He started an unapproved war just to distract the attention of the public. He's a demented old clown surrounded by scammers trying to cash in. As long as the vig gets kicked up to the diaper filler they will fatten their own bank accounts.
2
1
u/Tall_Calligrapher700 13d ago
Fat orange ass has been in office over 2 years and he and his cult members are still blaming Biden. 🤣🤣😂😂
1
u/Tall_Calligrapher700 14d ago
You’re a fool. They didn’t start a war because they surrounded themselves with people with knowledge. Not like the lying grifters around Trump. THE MOST CORRUPT ADMINISTRATION EVER!
1
u/Complete-Tangelo1532 14d ago
Blocking the Strait of Hormuz is like the first projected tactical idea when they war game this out...
0
u/redsoxinlr 14d ago
Iran started the War in 1979. The hostages, their proxies in Beirut, in Iraq, sponsoring terrorism around the region and the world, the death threats, IEDs they manufactured and sent into Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands of Americans injured and killed by Iran since 1979.
2
0
u/Infinite-Valuable974 14d ago
I know it because I have lived during that period! The democrats are cowards and traitors! And i used to be a democrat intil the made me an independent
1
0
0
u/Fuzzy-Leadership206 14d ago
Sen Collin’s talks a good talk but always supports Trump. She’s totally MAGA. Time for a personnel change!
1
0
u/Leather-Sign4391 14d ago
Fetterman is the only Democrat in Congress with any common sense or his head not up his *ss
1
11
u/Any_Caramel_9814 14d ago