Whose side are the Democrats on? Not America’s. If the past two months have shown anything, it’s that a U.S. victory in Iran is what they fear most.
Credit Thomas Friedman, a foreign policy columnist for the New York Times, for stating the unvarnished truth in an interview with CNN’s Michael Smerconish: “Nothing would improve the region more than the replacement of this regime with a regime in Iran that was focused on enabling its people to realize their full potential and integrating peacefully with other countries and stop occupying Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.”
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Yet when it comes to the war, Friedman still can’t say for sure which side he hopes will win. “The problem is,” he said, “I really don’t want to see [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu or Donald Trump politically strengthened by this war because they are two awful human beings.”
While Friedman is one of the few progressives to voice this sentiment so bluntly, he is clearly not alone. For many of those stricken with Trump derangement syndrome, the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran presents a genuine dilemma: as Americans, they would ordinarily support a U.S. victory, but since that would mean a political win for President Donald Trump, whom they despise, they simply can’t do it.
Iran’s bloody history is not in dispute. For decades, its regime has sponsored terrorism, destabilized the region, and pursued nuclear capabilities in defiance of repeated warnings from successive U.S. administrations. Every president has declared that Iran must never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. Yet until Trump, no U.S. president was bold enough to confront Tehran head-on.
But because it’s Trump who finally acted, Democratic politicians, anti-Trump Republicans, and most of the legacy media have condemned the war as “illegal” or “unnecessary,” framing it as a reckless escalation rather than a long-delayed confrontation. Many of these individuals openly cheer bad news for America.
On Monday, for example, it was reported that “at least 26 Iranian shadow fleet vessels” had bypassed the U.S. blockade, a claim disputed by the Pentagon. Before this news was determined to be Iranian propaganda, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) responded on X, “Awesome.”
When a reporter followed up, he dismissed the remark as sarcasm. In reality, an American loss — a Trump loss — would be a political boon for Democrats.
Murphy, whose hatred for Trump has utterly consumed him, spoke at a progressive gathering in Barcelona hosted by Pedro Sanchez, the socialist prime minister of Spain, last weekend.
The Spanish government has denied U.S. military access to both its bases and its airspace for operations related to the Iran war — a rebuke that has predictably drawn Trump’s ire. But as Murphy sees it, the enemy of his enemy is his friend.
In his remarks, he warned that “Donald Trump is trying to end our democracy” and described the current moment as “the most significant threat to democracy since the Civil War.” He went further still: “We are not on the verge of a totalitarian takeover — we are in the middle of it.”
The senator added that Americans are “watching the courage of the defenders of democracy in Hungary and other parts of Europe.”
Murphy’s partisan rhetoric underscores how thoroughly domestic political conflict now shapes the conversation — even during a time of war. The long-standing notion that “politics stops at the water’s edge” has all but disappeared, replaced by a climate in which foreign policy is inseparable from political divisions at home.
Democrats, who spent four years assuring the public that former President Joe Biden was as sharp as a tack, are now openly questioning Donald Trump’s mental acuity. Last week, House Democrats led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) introduced legislation to create a 17-member commission to evaluate Trump’s fitness for office. They did so with an eye toward invoking the 25th Amendment: a process that can be initiated only by the vice president and requires the support of a majority of the Cabinet.
In a press release, Raskin said, “We are at a dangerous precipice, and it is now a matter of national security for Congress to fulfill its responsibilities under the 25th Amendment to protect the American people from an increasingly volatile and unstable situation.”
Late-night hosts are all in, too. Jimmy Kimmel asked his audience: “Did you ever imagine you were more likely to believe the ayatollah than the president of the United States?”
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Trump is fighting a ruthless enemy abroad that has spent 47 years chanting “death to America.” But he’s also locked into a battle with another insidious foe at home, one that declared war on him more than a decade ago and seeks his personal destruction.
Democrats have made a choice. So deeply immersed in their hatred for Trump, they are unwilling — or unable — to put U.S. national interests first. They’ve chosen party over country. They’ve chosen politics over principle.
