Whether you support the Iran war or are a proponent of AI, once upon a time these would be considered politically courageous positions and pundits would have declared this is what leadership looks like.
In 2001, President Gerald Ford provided one of the best definitions of political courage in recent memory. While accepting the John F. Kennedy Profiles in Courage award, one of the only Presidents in American history who was never elected to the office by the people claimed, “The ultimate test of leadership is not the polls you take, but the risks you take. In the short run, some risks prove overwhelming. Political courage can be self-defeating. But the greatest defeat would be living without courage, for that would hardly be living.” In an essay that won second place in the Ford50 contest shortly before the 2024 election, Aiswarya Padmanabhan expanded on this notion, writing, “In 2024, political courage can be defined as the willingness to hold principled stances and make decisions that may be unpopular but are essential for the greater good of the nation. This courage manifests in various forms, such as prioritizing long-term benefits over short-term political gains, challenging party orthodoxy, and fostering bipartisan cooperation in the face of potential backlash.” As he continued to describe it, “The essence of political courage— taking chances for the larger good, even at personal expense—remains a cornerstone of successful democratic leadership, even though particular issues may have changed since Ford’s day. Moving forward, it becomes imperative to not only recognize and support acts of political courage, but also to critically examine the structural and cultural factors that shape its expression in our political system…In a time when partisanship and short-term thinking are frequently prevalent, Ford’s remarks serve as a standing reminder of the lasting value of political bravery in fostering a robust and progressive democracy.”
Fortunately or unfortunately, much of modern political punditry is based on the opposite approach, almost exclusively resting on the presumption that it’s better for politicians to simply follow the polls. Rather than being the leaders they are supposed to aspire to and potentially bucking public opinion in the process, the prevailing wisdom is that public opinion should rule the vast majority of our decisions. As a result, much of what passes for analysis these days, especially when the topic is in line with the mainstream media, center-left consensus, is the presentation of any given poll on any given topic followed by a determination of whether or not the politician in question is conforming to the poll. If they are deemed to be in nonconformance, an estimate of how far away they are and what the consequences of running afoul of public opinion swiftly follows. It’s as though politicians are expected to behave as The Simpsons’ Mayor Quimby who once claimed, “Very well. If that is the way the winds are blowing, let no one say that I don’t also blow.” This midterm election cycle, we see this tendency at work on two major issues, the Iran War and fears over the emergence of Artificial Intelligence and the associated data centers supporting the technology. In both cases, President Donald Trump has either made an unpopular decision or staked out an unpopular position, and the only question which remains is how much voters will punish the Republican Party for it, even as he isn’t on the ballot to begin with.
Thus, The New York Times’ David Wallace Wells claimed that the Iran War might be “The Mistake That May Finally Get the Republican Base to Ditch Trump” just last week and as though it were some kind of strange coincidence, on the very same day, Time Magazine attempted to explain “Why a Growing Number of Republicans Are Breaking With Trump on Iran,” claiming “With GOP fears over the pivotal November elections growing, more candidates and lawmakers in the party are choosing to distance themselves from the President on the issue—and though the defectors remain in the minority, Republican strategists tell TIME that GOP disapproval for the war in Iran will likely only continue to mount.” If you doubt this is the default position, a week earlier, The Guardian’s Chris Stein wrote almost exactly the same, insisting “More Republicans are turning on Iran war as midterms come into view.” As he framed it, “The rebellions in the GOP are thus far mostly symbolic – Trump has ignored the sole war powers resolution to make it through both the House and Senate, and the prospects of Hegseth’s impeachment are unclear. But they underscore the growing nerves among both the party’s most vulnerable and most disobedient lawmakers over continuing a conflict that appears to have accomplished little other than play into the hands of Democrats, who have spent the entirety of Trump’s second term arguing that only they can be trusted to lower costs for Americans.”
Over the summer, this thinking underlied the idea that President Trump was desperate for a deal, any deal, even one that would be worse than the status quo before the war. In June, while various options to end the war sooner rather than later were being discussed, former National Security Advisor John Bolton claimed, “I think a lot of this is testing will, testing resolve. I think the regime in Iran believes it can outlast Trump, that it has more patience than he does because he’s so desperate to get the price of oil down. I think that’s why they’ve now made sure Lebanon is part of the mix. That’s just one more factor that they can push Trump on, because they think he’s in a mood to give in.” Perhaps a little more charitably, former Pentagon official and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Rubin alluded to the need to wrap things up quickly when speaking to The Hill in June. “It’s always two steps forward, two steps back, and in the end there’s no progress made, except a lot of time gets wasted,” he said. “If you consider that Iran’s goal is less about making progress and more about running down the clock, then that strategy makes sense.” Later in the same article, Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, was far more blunt, claiming outright that the President was “desperate to reach a deal” even as he didn’t think one was possible because “Iran may be the latest case where Trump’s unpredictable and unconventional style of diplomacy comes up empty.” “The 2026 Iran war has done considerable damage to his domestic political standing because it has hurt all Americans economically and it hasn’t produced a tangible sign of success for U.S. national security,” he said.
Barely three months later, the exact opposite has happened. Rather than let the price of oil and electoral politics dictate his actions, the President has refused to make a less than satisfactory deal and has instead exhibited an incredible amount of strategic patience in both orchestrating a long term blockade and opening a pathway for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, neither of which were even mentioned as possibilities by the experts at the time. In fact, President Trump is so committed to victory on our terms, he rejected an offer from Iran that might’ve provided some immediate relief and at least the potential to claim some sort of success prior to the midterms as recently as last week. The BBC and other outlets reported it this way, completely failing to mention their earlier predictions that he would take any deal, “US President Donald Trump has rejected an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping within a week.” “I’m rejecting their deal,” he said on Saturday, noting that we had “total control” of the strait and there were “massive amounts of oil” passing through. “They want to make a deal, and I think that’s fine. I like making a deal, too. But that deal would not be acceptable,” he added, claiming the Iranians “want to make a deal where they open the Strait immediately because they’re losing so badly.” Previously, he had noted that any deal is likely to come after the midterms, not before, and yet beyond failing to mention they were wrong in the first place, precisely none of this coverage describes the President’s position as the principled one, one where he is exhibiting political courage for not taking the expedient way out, one where he is willing to lose the midterms to win a larger, more important strategic victory. When you consider that many of these same pundits spent months claiming that he would do the opposite, that he was desperate and would let electoral politics dictate our actions, it’s even more striking. Generally speaking when someone bucks both your own personal wisdom and the conventional wisdom, one takes notice, but not this time. Instead of a profile in courage, we get precious little other than doomsaying about Republican prospects.
Sadly, a similar situation is playing out on Artificial Intelligence and the data centers where the public is rightly or wrongly skeptical, but the President is making his position clear even at the risk of losing votes. Indeed, progressive pundits believe standing athwart progress, attempting to put the genie back in the proverbial bottle, and potentially losing the equivalent of this generation’s nuclear arms race to China is a potentially winning strategy, encouraging Democrats to take advantage of public opinion regardless of what is right or wrong. Rather than lead, they propose Democrats pander to opinion polls. Over the summer, Time Magazine described it in essential the same terms as the Iran War, “The GOP’S Data Center Panic,” NBC News claimed Republicans were wrestling with “data center backlash” as “GOP candidates have sprinted to get in line with voter skepticism about data centers as they emerge as a top midterms issue,” David Weigel writing for Semafor characterized it as “Republicans scrambl[ing] to remake their stance on data centers,” and The Washington Post insisted people could “See the moment when Republican politicians turned against data centers.” MSNOW was even more upfront about taking political advantage of the public’s concerns, claiming “Trump is giving Democrats a golden opportunity to win on data centers,” positing that this leaves “a tremendous opportunity for Democrats to respond and win on the issue of data centers. And their best bet is to coalesce around moratoriums on building them.”
In many cases, the politicians are eager to do so. In July, the Democrat Governor of New York, Kathy Hochul instituted what was described as the “First Statewide Moratorium on New Hyperscale Data Centers.” “New York has always been at the forefront of innovation and change but we’ve also always guaranteed that New Yorkers benefit. As data center development threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers, it’s my responsibility to take action and lead,” Governor Hochul explained. “New York will lead the way in creating the strongest standards in the nation for data center development, ensuring that when companies succeed because of New York, New Yorkers succeed too.” Though her counterpart, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro was championing construction of new data centers as recently as last year, crowing about some $20 billion in investment, he too has begun to oppose them. Last month, he signed an executive order “Demanding Data Center Developers Comply with Strict Requirements and Blocking Speculative, Irresponsible Data Center Projects.” In addition to ensuring “developers meet strict standards on energy affordability, environmental protection, workforce and economic development, transparency, and community engagement,” “The Executive Order removes all AI data center proposals from the Fast Track permitting process and prohibits the use of nondisclosure agreements for data center projects.” For his part, President Trump has remained steadfast in their favor, however, claiming “Communities that don’t take a data center, they’re making a mistake,” they create “tremendous amounts of jobs and money,” and if you are concerned about energy consumption, “They’re making their own power plants. They’re building the most beautiful, you’ve never seen power plants like this.” Even after a suspect claim that Artificial Intelligence will cause the extinction of the human race in less than ten years, like something out of the Terminator franchise went suspiciously viral, and leading Democrats demanded development of the technology be immediately paused, President Trump hosted an event earlier this week, where he doubled down on his position, rebranding Artificial Intelligence as Super Intelligence. While announcing that he and a group of technology leaders had signed a voluntary accord to limit potentially rogue AI including “robust internal controls” and partnering with an “independent external auditor,” he declared the technology will produce “unbelievable growth.” “I will never stifle the growth of a technology that will be bigger than the industrial revolution. We can’t stifle it, and we’re leading by a lot.”
Whether you support the Iran war or are a proponent of AI, once upon a time these would be considered politically courageous positions and pundits would have declared this is what leadership looks like. Now, however, even when they’ve been proven wrong in predicting what the President would do – claiming he would be the craven one and make a deal simply to win an election – they are the ones who recommend their favored politicians act even more craven. I’d say it’s astounding, but unfortunately, in the Trump Era one of the foundational rules is that nothing good can ever happen from his perspective and in that sense, it’s not the least bit surprising. Whatever may happen in the midterm elections next month, it should be clear to everyone President Trump is willing to take principled stands on important issues rather than pandering, despite being encouraged to do so by some of his own supporters. Today, however, the cravens are considered the heroes in the story.
