Trump, Iran, and the Political Limits of Not Believing in Anything
Morality as a tactical advantage
The chart below has been circulating online recently, showing a spike in trading on oil futures shortly before Donald Trump gave notice that he was pausing his threat to bomb an important Iranian water treatment facility. That strike, if carried out, would have prompted a significant Iranian retaliation and therefore would have had a major impact on the availability of energy globally. The chart seems to indicate someone knew Trump was going to announce the pause before he did it, traded on that knowledge and made a fortune - about $85M for 20 minutes of work.
If that scenario is true, that single event would represent one of the most brazen acts of corruption in the history of American life on a dollar per minute basis. In terms of its political implications it almost doesn’t matter if it’s true, because the news was met with a shrug and then everyone moved on. From a pro-Trump perspective if this is corruption it’s tolerated; there may be innocent explanations but I haven’t heard anyone even try to come up with any, which is indicative.
The corruption of the existing establishment was something you heard a great deal about throughout the Trump era; think of all the noise that people made over the years (deservedly) about Nancy Pelosi’s wealth and where it came from. For Trump supporters who saw him as the “honest liar” she was symbolic of how systemic corruption and liberal hypocrisy went hand in hand.
