A recent headline said that Trump was ready to send in the military to protect peaceful protestors after 8 were killed last week.

Oh… Trump is ready to protect Iranian protesters challenging Iran’s government, while federal forces continue to brutalize American citizens protesting on American soil. Got it. That’s much more on brand.

People on the left will rush to call out the hypocrisy, but we should stop playing for “morality points.” That only works if the other side cares about morality. Shaming doesn’t shame the shameless.

Morality isn’t transactional; it’s relational. It’s a vision of how people and power should relate: roles, rights, limits, and responsibilities. How we treat one another. What we owe our neighbors, our society, and ourselves.

Trump replaces that with pure Realpolitik—the belief that might makes right. Every interaction becomes a deal with a winner and a loser, a contest of leverage, a chance to extract the maximum. It isn’t “my word is my bond”; it’s “my word is only as good as you can enforce in court.” It isn’t standing up for the little guy; it’s squeezing him dry.

In short:
If your citizens protest you and it helps me, then protesters are heroes.
If my citizens protest me, then protesters get shot.

It is great that someone cares about the Iranian protestors. They are being brutalized and violently oppressed; unfortunately, so are many Americans by their own government.