This final term was never going to look like the first one.

I told people years ago – when Trump comes back he is going to do things that are not popular. Things that make even his supporters uncomfortable. Things that look reckless on the surface and calculated underneath. The first term he had to play it safer because he needed to win again. He needed the approval rating, the independents, the suburban vote, all of it. He had to hold back.

He cannot win again. He is a lame duck now. And that changes everything.

Some of you are missing the Iran context entirely. Go back to 2017. Trump had issues with Iran from the jump and there was a reason for that. Obama had given them nuclear materials, the money, and the technology to build nukes. He also handed them what they needed for effective ICBMs – intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching any part of the world with the push of a button. That was the environment Trump walked into.

He wanted to handle Iran in the first term. Could not. His first two years were swallowed by investigations. Then came the impeachment fight. Then the world got hijacked by a renamed flu strain with statistics pushed into the COVID column instead of the actual flu column where they belonged. And through all of it Trump had to hold back the hard moves because he still needed to win.

Now he does not need to win anything.

So Iran had to be dismantled. Israel had to do their part. But here is where most people stop reading the board correctly.

You think Trump did not know exactly what he was walking into before he engaged? You think Netanyahu commands Trump? You think he outsmarts Trump? That is not how this man operates. Trump is almost always a few steps ahead of everyone in the room including the people who think they are in front of him.

He said Israel is last. Let them take out Iran, let them finally do some work. But in doing so something else happened. Israel exposed itself. Not the Jewish people – the government. The apparatus. The decision makers. And now the things that were operating in the dark are standing in the light where everyone can see them.

You do not need to tell people someone is dangerous. You do not need to run a campaign against them or write a manifesto or flood social media with accusations. All you have to do is push them into the light just enough for the light to shine on those dark places and let the crowd gasp in horror on their own. That is exactly what happened. The only reason you can see the Israeli government’s failures so clearly right now is that Trump forced them into the spotlight.

And now when Trump says we need to stop sending aid, it is an easy sell. The crowd already sees why.

Think about who established Israel in 1948, taking the land from the Palestinians. Think about who the Zionists are and what institutions they control. Think about the central banks. Think about who has the whole world leveraged in debt and why that has never been seriously challenged by any American president until now.

Trump has his enemies in the spotlight.

He is showing you who he is really going after. The question is whether you are paying close enough attention to see it.

Stephon Rudd