Jeb Bladine: Partisan bombast threatens need for U.S. unity

Iran seems content to take more military blows, randomly hurl its remaining missiles at surrounding nations, maintain a stranglehold on oil shipment through the Strait of Hormuz, and monitor the deterioration of American willingness to suffer economic distress generated by the massive Middle East war.

I paid $4.75 per gallon for regular gasoline this week, slightly below Oregon’s statewide average. By now, we may have joined California, Alaska and Hawaii in cracking the $5-per-gallon barrier, but people already are talking about the possibility of $10 gasoline if the war continues unchanged.

Simultaneously, domestic air travel is in self-inflicted crisis with airport closures likely looming. Congress and the Trump Administration have been unwilling to compromise political ambitions for the sake of funding vast areas of public safety services.

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Jeb Bladine is president and publisher of the News-Register.

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There are nationwide calls for unity in the face of these challenges, even harking back to President Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address in 1861. Staring into the abyss of an imminent civil war, he said:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory … will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

We are continuing a war launched by the Trump Administration without congressional authorization and opposed in scope by about 60 percent of Americans. Even more disturbing, President Donald Trump is stimulating instead of calming the destructive power of internal conflict.

When Robert Mueller died last week, Trump posted on Truth Social, “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people.”

Mueller, a career federal prosecutor, was a decorated U.S. Marine platoon leader in Vietnam; a career federal prosecutor; 12-year director of the FBI under presidents Bush and Obama; and target of Trump’s wrath as Special Counsel appointed by the Justice Department to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

It was yet another Trump expression of personal hatred for people viewed as political opponents. That quote paled, however, compared to Trump’s March 22 Truth Social post about America’s greatest enemy.

It began with a premature claim of total demise for Iran, rivaling the 2003 notorious “Mission Accomplished” banner flown aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln amid ongoing U.S. military operations against Iraq. But this 2026 statement spiraled into perhaps the most alarming warning of the Trump presidency:

“Now with the death of Iran, the greatest enemy America has is the Radical Left, Highly Incompetent, Democrat Party!”

So, we’re happy that Robert Mueller is dead; we allegedly have completely decimated our greatest global enemy; and now we can turn our sights on the total destruction of the Democratic Party.

I’m not a huge fan of various Democratic Party beliefs and initiatives, particularly in terms of results. But I’m not ready to brand it America’s No. 1 enemy, or to tolerate the equally dysfunctional leadership of today’s GOP.

We deserve better.

Jeb Bladine can be reached at jbladine@newsregister.com or 503-687-1223.