At the end of February, Trump ordered the military to start a war of choice against Iran. It is a war of choice because Iran posed no immediate military threat to the U.S. At least that was the opinion of at least some of our allies and U.S. intelligence agents.
With that in mind, the question became how would this war of choice affect American voters. The focus then revolved around gas prices and inflation. That a prolonged war in which gas prices were high close or up to the midterm elections, that it could cause Trumpˋs party to lose control over at least one chamber of Congress.
The problem with that analysis, if true, is what that prediction reveals about Americans moral values. For if inflation statistics were the most prominent factor in determining how Americans respond to war, then Americans believe only in transactional voting. That seems to be an apt description of the MAGA voters who oppose Trumpˋs decision to go to war because they feel that Trump was following an Israel first policy.
If moral values are more important to us than inflation, the statistics we would be looking at would include: the number of civilians whom the Iranian regime has killed, the number of Iranian civilians who have been killed by the war, the number of Iranian refugees who are fleeing from the war, the number of civilians killed in Lebanon, and the number of displaced people from there The statistics from Lebanon are as much a part of our statistics even though the U.S. is not attacking Lebanon. That is because Israel is using American made weapons in its war against Lebanon .
But the above are not the only statistics to consider. That is because there are future statistics to consider. For example, what if our war against Iran produces a civil war within Iran between supporters of the regime and its opposition? Or how many Iranians will die as a result of injuries or the destruction to infrastructure that the current war will causing? We could also consider how many people from other nations will die because their enemies acted unilaterally without consulting the international community just as the U.S. and Israel did in attacking Iran? Finally, how many people will die when the continued use of war eventually results in the exchange of WMDs between waring nations as warned against in the Russell-Einstein Manifesto?
When we just consider the moral statistics, we find grounds for both going to and refraining from waging war against Iran. But regarding the number of innocent civilians killed by the Iranian regime, if that is an adequate justification for waging war against Iran, does it also provide an adequate justification for the U.S. or another nation to go to war against Israel for Israelˋs treatment of the Palestinians in the Occupied territories? Perhaps that has been Iran's justification for using proxies to attack Israel. And if that is the case, just maybe we are more like our enemy than we care to admit
It seems that the price of gas should be less of a factor than the statistics mentioned above in determining the midterm elections At least it should be that way if Americans hope to keep their democracy. That is because authoritarian candidates can more easily win elections based on transactional voting such as what financial benefits they promise to voters. And so elections can be their way of getting their feet in the door of high government positions.
The news networks that have reported that inflation is a major issue in determining how voters will vote in the midterm elections might just be right. But then we Americans must be honest with ourselves. We must then admit that the more transactional we are in our voting, the more we put Democracy at risk. That is because Democracy is based on values such as on the principle of equality. Transactional concerns do not involve equality, but they can include personal weath. That is not to say that personal wealth is unimportant. It is that Democracy should be more important to voters than immediate financial fixes, or even long-term ones.
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