A POSSIBLE TRUMP OCTOBER SURPRISE IS ALREADY FAILING

I don't know what else President Trump is planning in order to prevent a Republican bloodbath in the midterms, but if all his schemes are as ill-conceived as the one reported by The Atlantic yesterday, we don't have much to worry about.

The White House has asked the Pentagon to develop strike options against Iranian targets that could be exercised ahead of the midterms, according to two administration officials.

How do we know this is intended to be a midterm October surprise? Because White House insiders say it is.

The planning underscores just how much the president wants to reduce gas prices and demonstrate progress in the conflict before the vote, administration officials told us.

... those in favor believe that further action after months of uneasy peace could allow Trump to demonstrate strength and potentially declare some sort of victory, giving Republicans much-needed momentum heading into the election. “It would make the president look like he got a win and that gas prices would start going down,” a Republican familiar with the deliberations told us....

But gas prices wouldn't start going down. In fact, the mere possibility that Trump might do this appears to be raising oil prices right now. NBC News reports:

The price of oil jumped sharply Thursday, as President Donald Trump weighs whether to resume large-scale U.S. military operations against Iran in the coming weeks.

Brent crude oil rose more than 5% to more than $105 per barrel in early trading, while U.S. crude oil rose almost 5% to nearly $93 per barrel. Benchmark diesel futures jumped 4.5% in European trading. Heating oil, a proxy for jet fuel, rose more than 4%.

(Heating oil isn't just "a proxy for jet fuel." It's still a primary fuel for heating in the Northeast. Half of Maine residents use oil heat, and they were already expected to pay an average of more than $1,260 per family for heating this winter.)

More from NBC:

The move higher in oil prices also pushed up bond yields. The 10-year Treasury yield, which heavily influences consumer borrowing rates, jumped to 5.35%....

U.S. stock futures dropped in response. S&P 500 futures fell 0.6% and Nasdaq 100 futures slid 0.8%. Futures for the Russell 2000, which tracks small and medium-sized companies, fell 1%.

So this is a disaster and it hasn't even happened yet.

Trump simply doesn't understand that war is a process that has costs even for the winner. Venezuela lulled him into believing that he could simply attack Iran and score a win with little or no cost to America. Boom -- victory! You might imagine that the last seven months were a learning experience for Trump, but Trump doesn't learn. He now thinks he can do Boom -- electoral victory! He can't.

I don't know if the other October surprises Trump is considering, such as the seizure of voting machines, will be similarly ill-conceived, but we can hope. It's quite possible that Trump will try to seize voting machines in locales where the government is likely to push back hardest, both legislatively and in court. There's a good chance that he'll focus on states that get on his nerves, like California, rather than states where key races are taking place. Because Trump is still angry about 2020, he might go after Georgia, where Jon Ossoff is likely to win by such a comfortable margin that Trump's cries of "Fraud!" will be especially implausible, while ignoring other states (Iowa? Maine?) with much tighter races.

I don't want to rule out the possibility that Trump's efforts will be effective, but he often doesn't know how to use the power our system has ceded to him in an effective way. Let's hope that's true in this election season.