Over the summer, I browsed the various kitschy offerings at a Trump-themed merchandise store on a sweltering day in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. T-shirts emblazoned with “OPERATION MIDNIGHT HAMMER” — the official name for Trump’s June strike on Iranian nuclear sites — caught me a bit off guard. Did anyone care enough about the mission to wear it on their chest?

Now, as President Trump weighs his options in the region amid another military buildup, the politics of escalation are just as complicated. Midterm repercussions would, of course, hinge entirely on how any future attack plays out: a quick success or the start of another grinding conflict? That will matter enormously. Either way, if Trump strikes again, it will throw a wrench into his team’s plan to focus heavily on the economy from now until November, hoping to avoid a blue wave that would put impeachment on the table.

Just this week, Trump’s team huddled on Capitol Hill for a midterm strategy session with pollster Tony Fabrizio. As Mark Halperin reported, the “headline” was “The economy will be THE issue at the polls this November. Not immigration. Not foreign policy. Not Epstein or the border. Not investigations or indictments or Jan. 6 retrospectives. The economy.”

A major foreign conflict will necessarily suck huge amounts of oxygen from this message. Earlier this year, Team Trump already sensed the president needed to shift some of his focus back to domestic politics and spend less time on legacy-building foreign matters that might make the case for a Nobel Prize. He now risks making the same mistake.

To be fair, “Midnight Hammer” polled relatively well in the weeks after the US strikes. A Harvard-Harris survey in July found that 58% of Americans supported it, including 87% of Republicans and 52% of independents. Further, more than half of Americans, a full 54%, actually saw the operation as a “major military accomplishment”.

MAGA elites were more divided. Figures like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and Marjorie Taylor Greene were sceptical that the move really represented “America First” foreign policy. Hawks saw the operation’s success as vindication that the anti-interventionists lacked credibility both in terms of politics and policy. The strike worked and the public liked it.

Most would agree, however, that if a protracted military conflict had ensued — hardly an outrageous possibility — this would have been different. Given that Republicans suffered some major defeats in off-year elections last November, a lengthy war in Iran could add more fuel to the Democratic fire.

Before she resigned from Congress, Greene spoke out. “We didn’t elect the president to go out there and travel the world and end the foreign wars,” Greene told NBC News. “We elected the president to stop sending tax dollars and weapons for the foreign wars — to completely not engage anymore. Watching the foreign leaders come to the White House through a revolving door is not helping Americans.” She added: “One of the big campaign issues is Americans were fed up with foreign wars.”

Interestingly, according to Halperin, Fabrizio’s polling shows Trump should start talking more like Greene. Which messages “resonate with key voters”? Fabrizio reportedly found that it was “banning stock trading for members of Congress; promoting greater transparency in health insurance pricing and claims reimbursement; lowering prescription drug costs; and protecting the Trump tax cuts.” For younger voters, housing costs will be important too.

None of this means voters will necessarily punish Trump and Republicans on the ballot in November for attacking Iran. Another quick and successful conflict could either help Republicans or have very little effect at all. Trump and the GOP could find a way to keep their messaging focused mostly on the economy, even as a conflict wages in the Middle East. But in light of the massive military buildup happening far away from America’s shores, that won’t be easy.

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Emily Jashinsky is UnHerd‘s Washington correspondent.

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