Shortly after Trump’s attacks on Iran, I predicted his favorability ratings would not fall, writing:
I predict, yet again, the ‘doomers’ and ‘black-pillers’ will be wrong, just as they were wrong in June 2025 when Trump attacked Iran. Trump saw no net loss of approval despite the insistence by a vocal online minority that he had ‘betrayed his base’. The same applies here, too. The ‘all or nothing’ thinking is the worst. No, this is not an indictment on Trump. His support has not ‘collapsed’. His supporters do not feel ‘betrayed’–only those who never supported him in the first place.
Sure enough–lo and behold–I was right again. From March 7th, “Donald Trump’s presidential approval rating shifts after Iran war”
Other recent polls taken this week by CNN, NBC and YouGov, found a majority of voters disapprove of Iran strikes or Trump’s handling of the attack, expressing fears of escalation. However, the president’s overall approval ratings have slightly risen since prior to the Iran war.
The majority of polled oppose how Trump is handling the situation:
The findings resemble the sentiment expressed in an NBC News poll earlier this week, which found that 54 percent of voters disapproved of how Trump was handling the conflict with Iran, versus 41 percent who approved. Five percent of respondents were unsure or said they had no opinion.
This is not that big of a deal, or it’s not saying much. This is what would be expected given that Trump’s popularity is not that high to begin with, similar to that of Biden during his first and only term. If Trump’s approval ratings are at only 45%, it stands to reason the majority would disapprove of his handling of Iran, too.
But either way, there has been no major decline of approval as many were predicting last week. I was right again. Trump is old and a lame duck. He is trying to cement a legacy for his Middle East policy, but if he fails, he will be out of office and possibly dead anyway, so he won’t have to face the consequences if he’s wrong, as it will no longer be his problem.
Pundits such as @Cernovich are in disbelief by Trump’s actions:
Hard to believe. Maybe I’m still naive. https://t.co/dzKES9V84t
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) March 6, 2026
To me, it couldn’t be more obvious or unsurprising. Trump is obsessed with winning…his whole public image is about projecting strength and masculinity. He’s very much pro-military and police. Why would he carve an exception for foreign policy? That makes no sense. He’s also made his pro-Israeli ties very clear during his first term. Recall, Trump in 2020 killed Iran’s general Qasem Soleimani in a targeted air strike.
It should be clear Trump is no pacifist or isolationist. Here is what I wrote in 2024: “Yes, Trump is manipulatable too, but still conveys more strength than Biden. Trump may seem soft on dictators or autocrats, but he’s also the type of person who if sufficiently provoked or if the time calls, unlike Biden, will not defer to ‘international law’.”
Unless you were in a coma or in denial, all of this was obvious, or at the very least, unsurprising. All these people who think they understand Trump are coming off as naive. I know Trump’s psychology better than even the most hardened of his supporters or biggest political junkies. Trump is drawn to power and authority, hence why he is so pro-Israel and pro-interventionism, as an extension of this. Everyone makes mistakes and gets things wrong, but you would expect people who have been writing about Trump for years and have built careers as pundits to know this by know.
Rather, people projected their own isolationist or pacifist beliefs onto trump. I could not think of a more inaccurate mapping. Having an extremely high IQ means you’re better at understanding things in general, including not just macro stuff, but also motives and human behavior. Almost everything follows rules/systems, which can be gleaned if one is astute enough. This is how I knew Bitcoin would crash, or no Bitcoin reserve. Or was the only one to predict that tech stocks would boom, no AI crash, and that crypto would crash. Or that Trump’s approval ratings would not fall much, if at all, as a consequence of the strikes.
In response to the obvious retort “Why didn’t you bet on Iran strikes on Polymarket or Kalshi if you were so certain?” making money requires getting the timing right. Simply betting on “Iran strikes in 2026” would have yielded only a small payout, since the consensus already expected strikes at some point during the year. Indeed, prediction markets had already assigned a 70% probability to a strike occurring at some point in 2026. Because that outcome was largely priced in, the expected return from such a bet would have been 35% (after factoring in fees).
Instead, I chose to short Bitcoin, which I viewed as a more effective way to profit from the same underlying geopolitical thesis. Also, Polymarket and Kalshi are known for arbitrarily changing the terms of their markets and refusing to payout, which makes me not to want to use them anymore.
This information is free and for the benefit of the public who acts on it. If anything, it does a disservice to others to keep it to myself. If smart people keep their knowledge to themselves it would make society worse off.