The Daly Weekly (3/13)

The Iran War, alleged "RINOs," Jesse Jackson's funeral, and more.

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Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw my way.

Let’s get right to your questions…

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Good, concise analysis. I am curious about your business relationship with each other, and also, John, which part of Colorado are you from. — Bob H.

Thanks Bob. Contrary to that of Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski, my business relationship with Bernie is strictly professional. Lol.

Seriously though, in simplified terms, Bernie owns this site/membership, and I manage and promote it. Both of us, of course, contribute our own individual commentary. I also edit the podcasts.

As for where I’m at, I live in Greeley, Colorado. It’s a little over an hour north of Denver. I grew up in Lakewood, a western suburb of Denver.

John, I admire your optimism about the future of Iran, and once again, I am not shedding any tears for the mullahs or other leaders in Iran that have met their 72 virgins. However, if you look at our track record in the Middle East vis a vis regime chance: Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan - we are basically 0-4. Our military is the best in the world, and can defeat any other military in the world in conventional combat situations, but "regime change" takes more than that. I just think it's overly naive to think this war won't drag on, in some form for at least 10 years. This looks like Iraq 2.0 to me. — John M.

I totally understand your concerns, John, and it’s entirely possible this will indeed drag on for some time. It’s easy to look at the overthrowing of past regimes in the Middle East, using the metric of whether it resulted in a Jeffersonian democracy (or even something well short of that), and see failure. But I don’t quite view it that way.

I had pretty complex thoughts on Afghanistan, prior to the enactment of the foolish Biden/Trump doctrine (people can read those thoughts here). I didn’t consider Afghanistan a loss before then, but rather more of a cold war. Biden forced an unnecessary loss, and the collapse of Afghanistan, based on the political sentiments from an earlier era. It was a terrible mistake.

And I still don’t consider Iraq a loss. It’s worth remembering that we actually toppled the regime pretty quickly, but Iran and other insurgents poured in over time and created a much deeper conflict. It took years, and blood and treasure, but I would argue that we actually won that war. Unfortunately, Obama pulled us out too early after the successful Bush-era surge, which drew in ISIS, and put us in the position of having to go back in and fight some more to clean it up. But all these years later, Iraq is in a far better place than it was and would have been. Still, what most people hold onto is the pain it took to get us there (which is understandable). Because of that, lots of folks reflexively believe every U.S. foreign invention will be like Iraq, despite differences in ruling regimes, history, culture, and regional conflicts — not to mention U.S. military objectives and capabilities.

Iran, in 2026, is different (so is the region for that matter). Since the Iraq War, many other countries in the Middle East have become far less hostile to (and even cooperative with) both the U.S. and Israel, in large part because they’ve come to recognize Iran as a common threat (a threat that has been significantly weakened, with their mostly behind-the-scenes help, over the past few years). The people of Iran are demonstrably emboldened to revolt, in a way the generationally-oppressed Iraqis were not. This less than two-week-old war in Iran has already led to Lebanon calling for direct talks with Israel on “permanent arrangements for security and stability on our borders,” while calling out the betrayal of Hezbollah. I think we can see many other positive alliances built from this, while what’s left of the Iranian regime becomes further isolated and diminished.

Are there lots of challenges and the potential for things to go wrong? Yes. Do I have faith in President Trump to see this situation through properly? No. But I think this is a historic, perhaps once-in-a-generation opportunity for a new day in the Middle East, and I hope it’s successful.

I’ve been wondering for awhile now which is better: parties selecting their candidate in backroom deals Like the old days; or the public primary system which, as you say, very few people participate in which leaves the party radicals left to pick the candidate. Your thought? — Rick H.

Good question, Rick. Party-primary reform is something I’ve thought a lot about over the last decade, as our two major parties have only grown weaker and weaker. It’s worth remembering what the purpose of a political party is supposed to be: a vehicle for defining social ambitions, translating them into policy positions, building public support for those positions, and ultimately advancing them through elections and public policy. But that’s not how the parties function these days, in no small part because those “smoke-filled rooms” no longer exist. The decision has instead been largely democratized, which, as you and I stated, gives more weight to highly-engaged radicals. And when a nominee is selected these days (often by a plurality rather than a majority), the car keys are basically just handed over to the winner, who’s often the loudest, most obnoxious person in the room. The party then climbs into the backseat, buckles up, and hopes they won’t be driven off a cliff.

This practice of falling in line behind an individual, whose ambitions and policy positions (if they even have any serious or identifiable ones) may not line up at all with the party platform, defeats the main purpose of that party. Some may remember that Trump (a lifelong Democrat until he decided to run for president) made the GOP drop their platform entirely at one point (they later rewrote it to essentially pledge deference to Trump). Others may recall that Bernie Sanders came closer to defeating Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primary than anyone could have guessed (and he only switches his party affiliation from “Independent” to “Democrat” when he decides to run for president).

Think about that for a second: In 2016, Republicans nominated a lifelong Democrat, and Democrats came close to nominating an Independent, neither of whose views lined up with their respective party platforms. That’s how weak the parties had become, and they’re much weaker now.

So, do I think the “backroom deals” days were better for the parties, and resulted in stronger, more capable nominees than those selected through publicly democratized primaries? Yeah, I suppose I do. That said, I don’t see those days ever coming back (at least outside of emergency situations). The best someone like me could plausibly hope for are ranked-choice primaries, and increased primary turn-out.

John: I want to explore the term RINO, which I hate. Stands for Republican In Name Only and was most recently applied to Dan Crenshaw, who fell out of favor with the MAGA crowd and lost his primary race in Texas. I actually think most of the modern Republican party are RINO's, having forsaken many of the principles of conservatism - rule of law, personal responsibility, and especially fiscal conservatism. Has RINO just become a pejorative term among our Republican crowd for RIDL (Republicans I Don't Like)? — Steve R.

I’ve never liked the “RINO” stuff. It’s always struck me as stupid. Regardless, its meaning — as you elude to — has changed dramatically since the pre-Trump era. Back then, it was used to criticize Republicans who were deemed insufficiently conservative. Under that definition, Trump would be the ultimate RINO. Today, however, “RINO” is used to trash Republicans who aren’t 100% servile to Donald Trump. Heck, it’s even used to trash me, and I’ve been politically unaffiliated for a decade (you can’t be a RINO if you’re not even a Republican). I can’t take anyone seriously who throws the term “RINO” around in earnest these days.

Sir John — Jesse Jackson Jr. did the classy thing by inviting people of all political persuasions to his father’s funeral. As I recall, he did request that nobody bring politics into the funeral. Of course that did not stop Obama, Biden AND Harris from doing so. Your thoughts? —“Friday The 13th Part 2026—Dems Dishonor The Dead” regards from The Emperor

I’m of the strong belief that if the family of someone who’s passed away asks that funeral attendees refrain from engaging politics, those people should absolutely refrain from engaging in politics. It’s really a no-brainer. And yes, it’s disrespectful to disregard such a request.

A while back, there were a number of crazy commenters on this website who regularly accused you and Bernie of holding all kinds of positions and beliefs that you very clearly did not hold. In fact they were often the exact opposite beliefs that you guys have regularly stated in your writing and podcasts. What happened to them? Did they finally get tired of making stuff up? And why were they doing it in the first place? (Not that I miss them). — Alex D.

I think most of them just left, Alex… though I know a few are still subscribers. The whole phenomenon (which I see on lots of other websites as well) really is bizarre. It basically comes down to our criticism of Donald Trump, and some points I made in a column back in January.

If someone spends endless hours digesting popular right-wing commentary (whether it’s Fox News, Newsmax, high-ranking podcasts, etc.), they come to this website with all kinds of preconditions and “conventional wisdom” that doesn’t line up with our commentary. That’s because we’re not here to confirm people’s political biases, like the big outlets are. We’re just a couple of conservative guys sharing what we actually believe, based on facts, with intellectual consistency. But because we’re often at odds with the popular right-wing outlets, a certain type of person essentially disregards what we say, and instead assigns us the positions and ideology of their perceived political enemies: liberals. Again, this comes from what they’re preconditioned to believe — not what we actually say or write.

Below is a great example. Someone cancelled their subscription the other day, and included this note explaining why:

I've long admired you Bernie, because you were the first to correctly point out how dangerous the so-called mainstream media had become - "they aren't just biased, they are corrupt."But I'm afraid you have really lost your way. I too am a proud Reaganite. But any Reaganite that can actually endorse voting for the communist left is a good thing today has clearly lost his marbles. This idiocy of voting for the left because you don't like Trump is going to ruin this country. I can't believe you endorse this moronic point of view. Bye.

A question for those of you who just read that: When did Bernie ever “endorse voting for the communist left”? When did he endorse voting for any Democrat? Bernie doesn’t even vote for Democrats himself! He has stated, time after time, that the last Democrat he voted for was Jimmy Carter… in the 1980s!

And yet, this guy was so offended, by something he totally fabricated in his own mind (derived only from Bernie’s criticisms of Donald Trump), that he cancelled his subscription. If that’s not Trump Derangement Syndrome, I don’t know what is. But that’s the kind of stuff we unfortunately have to contend with in today’s hyper-tribal political environment.

Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.