J.D. Vance's MAGA political career is over. Before I explain why, let me share a story from Chinese history.
During the Three Kingdoms period, Yuan Shao was a powerful warlord in northern China. He had a strategic advisor named Tian Feng, who desperately urged Yuan Shao not to go to war with Cao Cao. Yuan Shao ignored his advice and instead threw Tian Feng in prison. As predicted, Yuan Shao was decisively defeated by Cao Cao.
A jailer came to congratulate Tian Feng, saying, "Sir, you were right! The lord will surely release you later." Tian Feng replied, "No, this is the end for me. Our lord is extremely stubborn. If he had defeated Cao Cao, I might have had a chance. But now that he has lost, he will definitely have me killed—because looking at me again would only be a fresh humiliation to his pride." Tian Feng indeed was killed later.
Today, Trump is Yuan Shao, and J.D. Vance is Tian Feng. Trump's failure in Iran has proven that Vance was right to oppose this war. Yet it is precisely this correctness that Trump can never accept—because acknowledging it would be an unbearable insult to his absolute sense of infallibility.
