Donald Trump had a feeling. Maybe Israel forced his hand. Or maybe he forced Israel’s hand. Either way, the vibes were off. Trump knew Iran’s response to being attacked would be to fight back, so he had no choice but to attack them first in order to preëmptively respond (or pre-spond) to their anticipated attacks in re-pre-sponse to our initial pre-sponse. Or, as Marco Rubio stood in front of reporters and said out loud in his big boy voice: “We went proactively in a defensive way.”
We kicked off this war of long-distance pre-taliatory liberation by precision bombing a girls’ school and killing 165 people—“most of them girls aged between 7 and 12”—allegedly to free them from the oppressive yoke of a regime that, I’m told, won’t let girls go to school. I guess they’re free now. “All I can say is we’re investigating that,” said Defense Secretary and overcompensating hardass uncle Pete Hegseth, who clearly couldn’t care less. But when an Iranian drone managed to slip through our $5 billion dollar a day missile shield and kill six Americans in Kuwait, Hegseth could barely pretend to care about that either. “Tragic things happen,” he said. “The press only wants to make the president look bad.” He doesn’t give a shit. Tom Nichols reported that:
My colleague Nancy Youssef was at the Pentagon this morning, sitting just three rows from the podium. I asked her what the atmosphere was like after Hegseth’s heartless remark. She told me that his comments “sent a stunned silence through the briefing room.” Even members of Hegseth’s staff, she said, seemed to flinch at what he was saying. “Some put their heads down,” she said, while others just looked around. Someone in the room then said: “That was one of the most insulting things I have ever heard,” quietly but audibly and, as far as Nancy could tell, to no one in particular.
Too bad for all the marks and suckers serving in the United States armed forces who believed America meant something, because the people in charge don’t care. They didn’t care about what this war would do to global energy supplies, 20% of which pass through the now-closed Strait of Hormuz. According to Politico, Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles is looking for ideas on what we might do about gas prices, another obvious consequence that Trump didn’t manage to “have a feeling” about before the Tomahawks flew. They don’t care about the urea tankers sitting bottled up in the Persian Gulf, at the exact time they need to set sail to provide fertilizer for the spring planting season. They’ll be fine either way. They absolutely don’t care. John Ganz wrote:
They will not even do the American people the courtesy of lying to them. It just doesn’t matter to them. Trump’s strategy, if you can call it that, is vague and amorphous. Essentially, “Maybe this will happen, maybe that will happen.” We have no idea what will happen, and neither does Trump.
The Washington Post found that even here in the heady first days of a new war, a moment Americans traditionally love more than anything, 52% of us are already against it. A month before the start of the Iraq war in 2003, Pew found that 66% of Americans were in favor of military action and just 27% opposed. Now a Reuters/Ipsos poll finds that only 27% approve of the attack on Iran, 43% disapprove, and 29% have no idea what to think, having not even been actively lied into an opinion on it. Nevertheless, as Parker Molloy pointed out, despite apparently doing zero planning and having no strategic goals or victory conditions, they’re trying to use the same decades-old slogan: “You’re either with us or you’re against us.” If that’s the case, I guess like the majority of us, I’m against us.
Interview Magazine: “Meet the Finest Boys in Finance.” The market top sirens are absolutely wailing here. Just look at this incredible lad:
Pictured: Actual cuffs.
What’s your most expensive mistake?
Started investing in the stock market in early 2020, right before COVID hit.
How many vests do you own?
Only four.
Good luck to Elon Musk taking SpaceX public in whatever market is coming after all this. Liz tried to figure out what the SpaceX IPO was all about real quick last Thursday and finally managed to publish 2700 words on Tuesday without really arriving at any clear answers. Now that xAI has bought X dot com and SpaceX has bought xAI, SpaceX is a lean, mean space launch satellite internet social media AI CSAM-as-a-service machine. Or, as Musk describes it, “a sentient sun to understand the Universe and extend the light of consciousness to the stars!” Whatever happens, at least the S1 will be a real hoot.
Board of Peace—Season one. Kate Wagner: “Toward an Understanding of Fascist Aesthetics, Part I.” Chris Melito: “No machine, regardless of fidelity, should replace desired interactions with humans… Because the simulacrum can never be responsible and cannot be held accountable.” Ryan Moulton: “The Hunt for Dark Breakfast.” I regret to inform you that stir fry has been rebranded “boy kibble” for some reason. I’m delighted to inform you that The New York Times profiled Oldster founder Sari Botton. And here’s “A Complimentary Profile Of Jason Lee That Was Surprisingly Difficult To Publish” by Nate Rogers in Defector instead of where it was originally commissioned which was (I’m told) GQ.
And Finally: if you, like me, are feeling somewhere close to a personal nadir of despair lately Tabs Senior Contributing Editor Bijan has some advice:
I think it's important and quietly radical to remember that evil is real and it does exist. And yes, I mean that even in our very secular age, where everything is gambling, scams, and petty grifts. Good exists, too. There is an us and there is a them. Don't become like them. Caring about each other is the only thing that will bring us into the future.
I guess… you’re either with us or you’re against us.
Today in Toys: Games etc. studio Brainfruit launched MOSS, “a painting toy where every brush is a tiny program” and also a sick hoodie that is a reference to an in-joke from a long running group chat, but you don’t need to know anything about that to appreciate it. (Ethics disclosure: The co-founders of Brainfruit are both my platonic boyfriends.) For real web sickos: Duck Hunt in pure CSS, and Web Haptics. List animals until failure. Jorb? Horb? Jort horse? This handy poster for home, office, or classroom will help you remember the stages of the Metahorsis of the Jorb (by Casey Landerkin, formerly of the Vinn Diagram.) And welcome to Twin Peaks.
Today’s Song: Gorillaz, “The Mountain, The Moon Cave and The Sad God”
I’m still somehow always surprised when I’m done writing a Tabs. One moment I’m right in the middle of it, and the next it’s suddenly finished. It’s very strange. Hey a lot of you are new here in the past few days so welcome! Just keep reading, and if you’re confused, click a link or two. You’ll get the hang of it. If you’d like some community support in your journey, the Tabs Discord is available to paid subscribers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We’re here to help.
