Public polls show Americans broadly disapprove of President Donald Trump’s war against Iran.
Yet, six months into a war the Trump administration initially said would last only a matter of weeks, there have been few national protests of the scale seen for other major conflicts, including the war in Ukraine, the Iraq War and the war in Gaza.
Some Democrats say that’s because of a deliberate strategy the Trump administration has taken to minimize political repercussions both in Congress and with the public.
“I think the president and secretary of defense have been trying to keep this as kind of low-grade conflict as possible, largely because they understand how unpopular this war is, which I think has kind of muted a lot of the protests, at least the ones that I used to go to when I was protesting the Iraq War,” said Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona), a U.S. Marine Corps combat veteran who served as an infantryman in Iraq.
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Trump’s decision not to commit ground troops to another war in the Middle East has kept the U.S. death toll relatively low compared to the war in Iraq. The Pentagon has confirmed 18 service member fatalities and over 620 wounded during the Iran war so far. About 4,500 U.S. troops died during the Iraq War, a bloody conflict that sustained opposition, including the formation of several liberal anti-war groups that remain active today.
“There’s a way in which these misadventures occur overseas, and people don’t feel connected to them,” Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) said.
Though Americans could soon start associating their increased cost of living with the war, Warnock said: “Americans are drowning in costs and are not always making the connection between this illegal war of choice and the prices that they’re paying at the pump, but I think that could change.”
There have been some anti-war protests this year, but they’ve been lumped in with broader public demonstrations against the Trump administration’s policies, including its expansion of executive power, its handling of the Epstein files, its immigration policies and the conduct of Immigration and Customs Enforcement following deadly shootings in Minnesota. In late March, millions of people joined the third “No Kings” protest, where, according to organizers, 8 million people participated across more than 3,300 sites nationwide.
Another No Kings protest may be coming soon, though it hasn’t been scheduled. “This fall, rise to the occasion,” reads a notice on the No Kings website. Other grassroots groups seem more focused on organizing events to protest ICE and to support voting rights.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), one of Congress’s most vocal critics of Trump who has accused the president of “nuclear-grade” corruption and self-dealing, said that “people are pretty seized by the domestic threats to democracy right now.”
“I think most people’s energy is right now being put into the fight to save democracy,” Murphy added. “I don’t think that organized protests are always a proxy for whether or not people care about something.”
Trump remains in a politically vulnerable position both with the public and with Congress, which has voiced opposition to being left out of the president’s foreign policy agenda.
Unlike the Iraq War, Trump never sought approval from Congress before launching airstrikes against Iran in February, a conflict that has so far failed to force Iranian capitulation or dismantle its nuclear arsenal. The president has also done little to explain his strategy or sell a skeptical public on the war’s aims, to the frustration of many Republicans on Capitol Hill.
The impact of the war has put the Republican majority in Congress at greater risk.
Iran’s strikes against commercial ships navigating the critical Strait of Hormuz has also taken a toll on the global economy. The price of energy, gasoline and consumer goods remains stubbornly high, a key concern for many Americans and congressional Republicans just a few months until the November midterm elections.
There’s also another theory for why there haven’t been as many anti-war protests: Trump’s military campaign in Iran is just so unpopular already, there’s no need for widespread protests to convince the masses. Trump is already on an island, some say.
“You had to convince the public of an anti-war posture in Iraq,” one Democratic strategist told NOTUS. “The anti-war posture is the default posture. It is a toxified position to be pro-war right now.”
“You don’t have to convince a bunch of folks who are maybe in the skeptical middle that an anti-war posture is the right posture to have. You don’t need 25,000 people, per se, outside of the White House every day to make the point,” the strategist added.
Many congressional Democrats initially supported President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, including prominent Democrats like Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Chuck Schumer. Their support eventually melted away as the war dragged on and public opinion turned against the conflict.
“It took time with the Iraq War for there to be momentum against the war,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) told NOTUS. “The public opinion has changed, I think, far more quickly on the Iran war than it did, as I recall, in the Iraq War.”
Democrats opposed Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran from the jump, condemning it as a misguided and unauthorized “war of choice” that would cost much and accomplish little. It’s not just progressive lawmakers, either. National security-minded Democrats have flatly opposed funding for the Iran war.
Opposition to the Iran war has been building on the right, too. Prominent media personalities and commentators who counted themselves as part of Trump’s “America First” movement have questioned the war’s rationale and said it violated the president’s campaign promises to keep the nation out of foreign entanglements. Earlier this year, Trump’s National Counterterrorism Center director, Joe Kent, resigned in protest over the U.S. war with Iran.
But congressional Republicans have continued to support the war against Iran, even if many are concerned about the economic ramifications and the electoral backlash in November.
“The only real criticism I’m hearing is people sort of wish we would focus more on domestic issues,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told NOTUS when asked what he’s hearing about the war from his constituents. “People tend to vote based on kitchen table issues and not foreign relations or international relations.”
“To me, what the president has done is necessary in terms of preventing [Iran] from getting a nuclear weapon. I support what he’s doing, although I understand how the message is a tough one during the run-up to midterm elections.”
Democrats, meanwhile, are confident that the war and Trump’s cratering approval numbers will help usher in a blue wave in November, with or without people hitting the streets.
“It’s a killer for him,” the Democratic strategist added. “It is the thing that has actually cratered Trump’s presidency. Yeah, the economy is obviously like a very tangible thing that people feel. But the thing that has actually really broken the ice on Trump’s [support] is Iran.”
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