Make Iran Great Again
A movement started by Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson
The MAGA movement is now locked in an all-out civil war. Honestly, if you didn't see this shitshow coming from a mile away, you owe me this month's mortgage payment. The reason? Iran. Or more specifically: whether to bomb it into the Stone Age, or just tweet angrily and go back to hounding the White House butlers for Diet Cokes.
On one side of the battlefield stands the War Hawks — led by the likes of Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, and Ben Shapiro — eager to flex American muscle in the name of defending Israel, containing Iran, and proving once and for all that the path to World War III could probably begin with a YouTube monologue.
Senator Graham declared that Iran “must pay a price,” presumably with blood, treasure, and whatever the hell is left of the U.S. military’s morale after two decades of sand and disappointment. At this point, with how much we've been involved in the Middle East, we should probably start looking for our Lisan al-Gaib. Senator Ted Cruz, my favorite Canadian senator and foreign policy sommelier, warned that failing to strike would show “weakness.” (As opposed to, say, losing 7 wars in a row.)
Ben Shapiro, sounding like a Pentagon press release wrapped in a PragerU thumbnail, praised Trump’s Iran strategy as a brilliant sleight of hand. According to Shapiro, Trump lulled Iran into complacency with performative diplomacy, then gave Israel the green light to reduce key military infrastructure to rubble — all while keeping American boots clean and hands technically off the trigger. In this telling, Trump didn’t just dodge war, he orchestrated a geopolitical magic trick with plausible deniability and a MAGA-branded smirk. It’s the kind of thing that sounds less like foreign policy commentary, and more like fanfiction for people who keep a signed copy of "The Art of the Deal" in their gun safe. I can easily see Ben Shapiro doing this unironically.
But then there’s the America First "Doves", led by Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who are foaming at the mouth at the idea of another U.S. military clusterfuck. Not because they oppose war exactly — but because they believe it distracts from more pressing national concerns like the weaponization of oat milk lattes or whether Taylor Swift is a Pentagon psyop. I, for one, am totally okay with weaponizing oat milk lattes and Swifties. In fact, we could combine them. The Swifties throw their oat milk lattes at nuclear centrifuges after the bunker-buster bomb is detonated.
But the real shit hit the fan during a live podcast epsiode when Carlson put Ted Cruz on all fours — beginning with a simple question: “How many people live in Iran?” Cruz didn’t know. “You don’t know the population of the country you seek to topple?” Carlson pressed, incredulously. “How could you not know that?” Cruz shot back, “I don’t sit around memorizing population tables.”
Carlson, now visibly agitated, responded, “Well it’s kind of relevant because you’re calling for the overthrow of the government.” He then asked Cruz for Iran’s ethnic breakdown. Cruz offered, “They are Persians and predominantly Shia.”
Carlson raw-dogged again: “What percent?”
As the two began yelling over each other, Carlson finally erupted: “You don’t know anything about Iran. You’re a senator who is calling for the overthrow of the government and you don’t know anything about the country!” It was the kind of TV moment that makes you wonder if the real qualification for steering U.S. foreign policy is just surviving a podcast interview with your dignity intact. Ted Cruz needs to consult Marco Rubio on this one.
Then there’s Trump. The man who once casually threatened to bomb Iran's cultural sites — a move so outrageous it briefly united historians, UNESCO, and the Iranian regime — is now trying to rebrand as a statesman. He says he doesn’t want war, but also insists that "Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon," which is less a strategy and more of a wish whispered into a hurricane. It’s classic Trump: escalate, then pivot to peacemaker while waiting for applause from both the hawks and the anti-war crowd.
The result is a MAGA meltdown. The movement that once laughed in unison at low-pressure shower heads now finds itself splintered between those who want to BOMB THE SHIT out of the Middle East (again), and those who think doing that is just a gateway drug to more refugees, more deep state ops, and another trillion-dollar desert adventure with a patriotic soundtrack and zero fucking exit plan.
So here we are. A right-wing coalition torn between the Chickenhawks and the Chick-fil-A Nationalists, all fighting for the soul of a movement whose foreign policy platform once consisted of little more than a wall, a scowl, and an angry tweet.
As Trump likes to say, we’ll see what the hell happens.
Democracy Dies in Memes is a recurring segment where real-world absurdity meets political analysis and reckless humor. If you're offended, good. (But also don’t cancel me pls).
Cheerio.