When Donald Trump announced his latest threats against Iran on Rush Limbaugh’s show last week, it was unclear whether he or his steroids were talking. Even this president rarely uses language like, “If you f**k around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before” in announcing foreign policy.
The possibility of an October Surprise looms over every presidential election. This year, twenty-some days out from the election they’re looking likely to lose, with more than 215,000 people across the United States dead from the pandemic, the White House transformed into the latest coronavirus hot spot, the economy still in free-fall, and the commander in chief loaded up on drugs, the Trump administration’s latest—harsh new sanctions on Iran—don’t look so surprising at all. The political use of the term October Surprise, after all, started with the Iran hostage crisis of 1980.
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