Que the right wing outrage in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1

[Hortensis]

8. Seriously, negotiating = surrender in many right-wing minds.

It's as you say for the leadership (good!), but for 50 million and more voting conservatives, by definition we lost and lost huge here. They don't have to know what, they know that the U.S. is destroying itself through weakness.

Hard as it is to believe, of the older ones were outraged and distressed by all our nuclear test ban and step-down treaties decades ago. They were sure they were all surrenders to communist states and signaled the end of America and freedom. That the end some literally wept over never came has changed nothing. They are still sure every new major negotiation means the end is near. And, of course, they reproduced their genes in subsequent generations.