Photo: Getty Images Europe
Six weeks after the beginning of the U.S. flexing its military might in Iran, the public doesn’t seem to be backing the effort. Polls indicate that people are questioning why we are there in the first place, and the image that most raises their ire is the sight of the gas station pump that inched up another eight cents since the last time they filled the tank and now are hovering near four dollars a gallon. In early hindsight, what could and should the Trump administration have done differently, and perhaps more importantly, is there time to reverse the nagging undercurrent of asking why are even there? J.C. Polanco is a political analyst and assistant professor at the University of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx; he appeared on 710 WOR’s Curtis Sliwa and Larry Mendte in the Morning program to lament a “self-inflicted wound that could have been different”.
Polanco explained where the wheels came off the argument to wage war in Iran: “Look, the messaging was off from the very beginning. The press conference that the President had a couple of nights ago to talk to the country should have happened a long time ago I think that his key layers, from Secretary Rubio to Secretary Hegseth to him and J.D. Vance and the like should have been more direct, should have had one cohesive message as to why we were there… that mixed messaging, the public does not like. We see that in the polls. In addition, it wasn’t just messaging. We’re feeling it in our pockets… I think that the polls would have, at the end of the day, been very different had there been one message and there wasn’t this coyness going on behind the messaging.”
Polanco then pointed out that it might be too late to get the public behind the intended message: “The Republicans are going to pay the price for the messaging in November; it’s unfortunate, but we’re seeing it in the polling data… so I think this weekend (Trump) has to just refocus on the messaging and assuring Americans that we’re not just going to have another terrorist nation at the end of this.”
Photo Credit: Getty Images