The heavyweight champion of the past decade in American politics is on the ropes.
His knees are getting rubbery. His hands are bruised. His eyes are glassy. Sometimes he doesn’t seem to even know where he is.
In any other bout, the fight would have been stopped long ago.
The problem is in this case, the refs—on the Supreme Court and in the majority on Capitol Hill—are on the take, and the people in the champ’s corner won’t throw in the towel because it could lead to all of them ending up in the hoosegow.
So, as bad as it has been recently for Kid Cankles, it seems likely that the more punishment he takes, the dirtier he will start to fight.
Trump has taken more serious punches in the past month than in the year since his return to office a year ago.
He opened with a flurry of attacks that went badly. While he landed a blow against an adversary (someone not in his weight class) when he grabbed Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro and his wife, the rest of his attempts at punching down have not gone well. Trump’s assertions that he had become the “acting president” of Venezuela were met with mockery. The US still has no control over the country or plans for its future—and US oil companies, like Exxon, are skeptical about turning Trump’s “victory” into sweet, sweet pipelines. Sure, the U.S. is continuing to murder men in small boats in the Caribbean and to pirate oil, but the world sees those measures for what they are: ugly and illegal.
But Trump did not realize that his moves in Venezuela signaled weakness rather than strength, and immediately started demanding that a new opponent join him in the ring. He wanted to take on Denmark for control of Greenland. The only problem? His complete failure to understand how alliances work led him to face not just one foe but dozens, as NATO and the EU put on their boxing gloves and threatened to hit Trump back where it would really hurt. (Right in his tariffs.) He retreated.
The most stinging blow was landed by an opponent Trump grossly underestimated: Canada’s Mark Carney, who called out Trump’s sleazy tactics and received a rousing ovation from the crowd as each of his blows landed sharply.
Reeling, Trump turned his attention back home. Surely, he could attack here since he could be both the aggressor and the one responsible for defending American cities. Surely, he could not lose while shadow-boxing himself. If he couldn’t invade the rest of the world successfully, why not attack the American cities he was supposed to be defending?
Again, the loopy old warhorse miscalculated, showing he misunderstands how America works even more than NATO or international law does. Again, he went after what he thought was a smaller opponent, only to discover it was much, much bigger than him.
The president reports to the voters—not the other way around. The people of Minneapolis reminded Trump who really has the clout in our system. They turned out in the streets and confronted Trump and his army of thugs. They showed they were fearless. Trump’s team literally executed two of them in the streets and they only grew stronger.
The tactics were so repugnant that many of his supporters turned against him. Republican Senators like Thom Tillis, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul have all demanded investigations and resignations from Trump’s corner. Trump supporters around the world have started calling him out. The former head of FIFA called for the rest of the planet to boycott the World Cup in America. One of Europe’s most Trump-friendly leaders, Slovakia’s Robert Fico, announced that he was deeply disturbed by Trump’s state of mind during their last meeting, and thought Trump came across as dangerous.
Elsewhere, it looks like the knockout blow Trump wanted to strike against the independence of the Federal Reserve was deflected, having landed too low even for the refs on the Roberts Court. Prices are continuing to rise. Another government shutdown looms. Measles and other infectious diseases are on the rise because of crazed-anti-science policies from Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services.
The hits keep on coming. And they keep connecting.
The question is, then, how much longer can the fading pug continue? If he were really a boxer, he’d have been put out to pasture long ago, reduced to sitting at a table in a bar somewhere signing autographs and answering questions that began, “Didn’t you used to be…?”
Instead, here we have a story that makes the decrepit, nearly brain-dead Rocky of the later movies in that series Trump loves so much look like Ali in his prime.
The problem is that there are people in his corner who are terrified of what the end of their champion means for them. With the president addled and confused, they are the ones calling the shots now. And they know that if he goes, they go down too. So they’re trying everything. And we can expect a flurry of blows against free and fair elections next.
So, while Trump looks like he is done, the fight is not over. Is he, with the prompting of the extremists in his corner, capable of a few more bloodied, Raging Bull-style onslaughts? Or have the people of Minnesota and the leaders of Europe provided the game plan by which Trump will ultimately be brought to his knees and counted out? He thought his gutter tactics and street-fighter sensibilities would let him go out on top. As it turns out, with courage, strength and resolve, it may be the people who play by the rules can win this fight.
