Blaming the Iran War is poised to become this cycle’s overly simplistic post-election narrative device. It offends almost no one, absolves the rest of the Trump II depredations, and misses its own anti-democratic origins.

We’re at risk of having the blue wave chalked up merely to the pocketbook impacts of the Iran War and the Trump tariffs without connecting either of them to the underlying authoritarianism involved.

The Iran War and the Trump tariffs, many of which (though not all) were struck down by the Supreme Court, were unilateral and illegal acts by the executive branch.

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The notion that Republicans were victimized by Trump’s political “missteps” and “miscalculations” necessarily supposes that his rogue anti-democratic presidency is somehow disconnected from the horrible outcomes it produces. It also unwittingly implies that if the outcomes had been good, the means would have been fine.