Whittaker Chambers and Forty-Seven Years of War With Iran
Life during Trumptime 3/2/26 - 3/8/26
I did a double take last week when I saw a picture of Whittaker Chambers on a wall of American heroes in a mobile children’s museum. The Soviet defector was there on a wall with Laura Engers Wilder, Steve Jobs, Mark Twain, and Walt Disney.
This was inside a PragerU Freedom Truck, a White House backed traveling exhibition meant to teach kids about the birth of the United States during its 250th birthday. The main attraction is AI-generated founding fathers and AI slop George Washington was interesting, but the picture of Chambers is what stuck with me after I left.
Chambers was one of the central figures that kicked off the post World War II Red Scare that launched the political careers of Richard Nixon, Robert Kennedy, and Joseph McCarthy. As the American public soured on the House Unamerican Activities Committee and the hunt for communists, the fight over Chambers legacy became a central grievance of the American right-wing. The picture of Chambers was on the bottom row of the heroes, about at the eye level of a kindergartner.
I thought again of Trump and others claiming that America’s war in Iran is simply the culmination of a 47 year long conflict. All the old grievances come around again, even and especially the ones we thought had been forgotten.
3/2/26
First Lady Melania Trump chaired a meeting of the UN Security Council where she called for peace and asked the world to think of the children.
“The US stands with all of the children throughout the world. I hope soon—peace will be yours,” Melania said during remarks to the council. “Children raised in a culture rooted in ignorance are surrounded by disorder, and sometimes even conflict. These societies are filled with rigid thinkers who embrace prejudice and shun human dignity.”
Days earlier on February 28, air strikes in Minab, Iran leveled the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school and killed more than 175 people including many children. Neither the US or Israel has claimed responsibility for this specific attack, but analysis from the New York Times and others concluded that the school was destroyed at the exact same time America bombed a nearby Iranian naval base.
3/3/26
Not content with all the wars in front of it, the Trump administration teamed up with Ecuador to expand both country’s combat operations against the Los Choneros cartel. The Ecuadorian military has been fighting this war against organized crime since 2024 with the support of the US, but American combat operations in the region are new. US Southern Command announced the opening of a new front in America’s long running War on Drugs by posting footage of air strikes against alleged traffickers (which it called terrorists) on X.
3/4/26
Official propaganda out of the White House this week was thick with video game references. In the Call of Duty franchise, players who kill multiple opponents without dying in a multiplayer match are rewarded with a “killstreak” bonus. There’s different types of killstreak bonuses, but one of the most popular is an airstrike that drops cluster bombs on enemies.
A White House video posted to X merged footage of a Call of Duty killstreak with the destruction of targets in Iran. Electronic music throbbed over grainy footage of targets exploding. “Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump,” a voice chanted as aircraft and vehicles exploded. Every destroyed piece of equipment netted +100 points in this fictionalized version of the very real war.
3/5/26
Kristin Noem is out as the Secretary of Homeland Security.
The cabinet and staff of the first Trump administration was unstable. People came and went so fast it was hard to keep track. Anthony Scaramucci famously served only ten days as White House communications director. Trump 2.0 has proved much more durable and resistant to scandal.
Noem’s antics, apparently, went too far. The breaking point was allegedly a $220 million tax-payer funded ad that featured Noem on horseback in front of Mount Rushmore. That’s about the cost of last year’s Superman film and the ad only runs 60 seconds, so about $3.6 million a second.
3/6/26
Trump told CNN’s Dana Bash that Cuba was next on the regime change list.
“Cuba is gonna fall pretty soon, by the way, unrelated, but Cuba is gonna fall too. They want to make a deal so badly. They want to make a deal, and so I’m going to put Marco (Rubio) over there and we’ll see how that works out. We’re really focused on this one right now. We’ve got plenty of time, but Cuba’s ready — after 50 years.”
Over on X, the White House continued playing to the gamers by posting footage from the Iran War against music from Grand Theft: Auto San Andreas. Cringe Meme Czar and White House director of communications Steven Cheung retweeted the video along with the San Andreas cheat code for infinite ammo.
3/7/26
At 4 AM, staff at the Capitol installed a plaque honoring the police who protected Congress on January 6, 2021. According to the Washington Post, the plaque sat in the basement of the Capitol uninstalled for years despite Congress passing a law saying it had to be displayed.
“Last summer, former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and another officer who responded to the riot sued the Architect of the Capitol to have the congressional memorial installed and, according to federal court records, ‘to honor the women and men who saved the lives of those inside the building, and to ensure that the history of this attack on the Capitol — and on democracy — is not forgotten.’”
“I never thought honoring police officers would be this controversial,” Dunn told the Post.
3/8/26
Trump promised to strike Iran “very hard” over the weekend and on Sunday the IDF hit a fuel depot in Tehran that caused black smoke to billow into the air above the city. Iraq and Kuwait cut oil production, Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz, and the Pentagon announced the death of a seventh US service member in the Iran War. As early trading began on Sunday, the cost of a barrel skyrocketed and oil futures plummeted.
“Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace. ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Sunday night.
On r/WallStreetBets—a subreddit for financial shitposters—one user posted a picture of panicking wojaks hugging each other under the title “Lord help us tomorrow.”
