SUICIDE BY BOOMERANG – Trump’s Ultimate Comeuppance

It's Donald Trump’s stock in trade: so thoroughly inundate his perceived enemies with lies, lawlessness and outrageous behavior that it confuses and exhausts us.

It’s the same tactic starlings use to outwit falcons. They form a murmuration, a swirling, undulating mass that confronts the preda-
tor with one huge, impenetrable target instead of individual victims.

Herring do it too. The best a sailfish or marlin can do is pick off a few outliers around the edges of the shoal.

PHOTO: Nick Dunlop

In Trump’s case, somewhere in the swarm fly his impeachable crimes. And we (the Resistance, the remaining honorable members of Congress, and the still-credible media) are the falcon. 

POLITICAL JUJITSU 
Well, it dawns on me that this can work both ways. What if we were to counter the Crimbecile’s deluge with our own deluge? You know, turn the tables on him. A swarm of falcons to his swarm of lying starlings.

This isn’t something just any Joe Blow from Kokomo can pull off. TinyHands, this monumentally insecure little man, can ignore jabs from people like us with no power or fame, but he’s shown us consistently that he can’t shake off a put-down by someone rich or famous. 

PHOTO: Wall Street Journal

This is how California Governor Gavin Newsom has so clever-
ly gotten under that flabby orange skin. Google’s AI overview says, “Newsom and his office have purposefully adopted Trump's all-caps, aggressive social media style to troll the former president and get his attention. This mimicry is a form 
of political jujitsu that uses Trump's own tactics against him.”

    Not even Faux News will be able 
    to resist these trash-taunts.

TAKING THE BAIT
What if we—I guess it would have to be the Democratic National Committee (DNC)—identify and recruit other notables like Newsom with enough visibility to command Trump’s attention, and have them take up the same tactics? Troll him. Make absurd accusations. Call him names. Question his manhood. Blame him for dirty tricks right before we use them on him. 

And always, always, meet his objections just like he does ours: by doubling down. 

Now if the attacks were to come from just a bunch of everyday liberal elites—you know, teachers, scientists, theologians…decent, thinking, caring Americans, they’d just get tossed into the virtual wastebasket Trumpublican State Media use for stuff they don’t like. But not even Faux News could resist these trash-taunts. 

What a story! Not just iconic newsmakers-turned-raptors biting at Orange Julius Caesar’s lily-white blubber-butt, but the small-cap president totally taking the bait and throwing a series of ever-more-deranged (and entertaining) tantrums. 

PHOTO: Governor Newsom Press Office

PHOTO: Wikipedia

There’s no shortage of candidates to take up the troll—folks who’ve already provoked Trump’s rage. Rosie O’Donnell, Bruce Springsteen, Robert De Niro, Stephen Colbert…oh, and one who, with a little grooming, might undo the Crimbecile like no other: Elon Musk.

Sometimes we have to nearly 
kill the patient to save them.

Will it work? We know this man; he can no more resist well-placed ridicule than he can flattery. It’s a weakness even our country’s worst enemies learned long ago how to exploit.

Trump’s reckless, undisciplined rants are already troubling some of his supporters. He’s starting to pick up some of the signs that he and his improbable power trip have peaked. So this new, right-back-atcha trick is sure to catch fire deep in the void that is his soul. The rage will eventually consume him. 

At long last, this vulgar charlatan, the con man of our age, will fall. Not to rejection by his party, not to impeachment, but to his very own vileness turned against him.

PHOTO: David Becker / Reuters

                      
I know. Intelligent, virtuous people might find this tactic incredibly hard to pull off. It’s anathema to us, something that, for very good reasons, doesn’t come naturally. Well, neither does zapping ourselves with deadly radiation. But hey, when it’s cancer, we’ve learned that sometimes we have to nearly kill the patient to save them.

So… think about it. Who would you include in the dream team to pull off the backatcha maneuver? C’mon, think outside the box. Jimmy Kimmel? Hillary Clinton? Michael Moore? Pope Leo?…ooh, ooh, I know someone who might rattle him more than anyone: a Joe Biden doppelgänger! 

What do you think? Folks in this little slice of the Resistance would love to hear from you!

SUICIDE BY BOOMERANG – Trump’s Ultimate Comeuppance

Donald Trump’s stock in trade is to so thoroughly inundate his perceived enemies with outrageousness that it confuses and exhausts us.

It reminds me of a tactic starlings use. To outwit hawks and falcons they form a murmuration, a swirling, undulating mass that confronts the predator not with individual victims, but with one huge, seemingly impenetrable target.

PHOTO: Nick Dunlop

In Trump’s case, somewhere in the swarm fly his impeachable crimes. And we (the Resistance, the remaining honorable members of Congress, and the still-credible media) are the falcon, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of wrongdoing.

Well, it dawns on me that this can work both ways. What if we were to counter the Crimbecile’s deluge of absurdity with our own deluge? You know, turn the tables on him. A swarm of falcons to his swarm of starlings, if you will.

                  We know this man; he can no more resist 
                  well-placed ridicule than he can flattery.

Now this isn’t something just any Joe Blow from Kokomo can pull off. TinyHands, a monumentally insecure little man, can ignore jabs from people with no power or renown, but he simply can’t shake off a put-down by someone rich or famous. 

PHOTO: CBS News

This is how California Governor Gavin Newsom has so cleverly gotten under the guy’s flabby orange skin. Google’s 
AI overview says, “Newsom and his office have purposefully adopted Trump's all-caps, aggressive social media style to 
troll the former president and get his attention. This mimicry 
is a form of political jujitsu that uses Trump's own tactics against him.”

What if we—I guess it would have to be the Democratic National Committee (DNC)—identify and recruit other lead-
ers like Newsom with enough visibility to command Trump’s attention, and have them take up the same tactics? Troll him. Make absurd accusations. Call him names. Question his manhood. Blame him for dirty tricks right before we use them on him. And lay it on so thick that, despite his all-hours rants on X, despite his phalanx of lawyers, there’s no one person to target; all he sees is a murmuration of ridicule.
 

ILLUSTRATION: MSN

PHOTO: Walter Isaacson

There’s no shortage of candidates to take up the troll—folks who’ve already provoked Trump’s rage. Rosie O’Donnell, Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, Robert De Niro, Jimmy Kimmel…oh, and one who, with a little grooming, could really undo the Crimbecile: Elon Musk.

Will it work? We know this man; he can no more resist well-placed taunting than he can flattery—even, by the way, from our country’s worst enemies, using him to help ply their own evils.

Trump’s reckless, undisciplined rants are already starting to trouble some of his supporters. He’s picking up some of the signs that he and his improbable power trip have peaked. Oh...and then there are the Epstein files.

PHOTO: Davidoff Studios/Getty Images

He’s become so desperate to conceal them that he’ll do anything to distract us. Order U.S. citizens abused and killed in the streets for simply witnessing his brutal immigration crackdown. Defy Congress to start multiple wars around the world. Float the prospect of making himself President For Life.

All to distract us from the lethal—to him—trove of evidence showing he’s raped young girls.

That fact has left him as vulnerable as he’s ever been in his hyper-privileged little life. Along with the E. files, this new, right-back-atcha trick is going to do to him what he’s done to all those young women. I dream of it all catching fire deep in the void where most folks have a soul. He'll implode.

At long last, this vulgar charlatan, the con man of our age, will fall. Not to rejection by his party, not to impeachment, but to his very own vileness turned against him.

COOL IT WITH I.C.E.

Outrage over the sickening brutality of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and their ham-handed chain of command is certainly warranted. But we Democrats, more than ever, must be more aware, more strategic with our rhetoric. Let’s recall the ruinous effect of the Democrat left wing’s well-intentioned rallying cry after the police murder of George Floyd five years ago.

PHOTO: Chloe Jones | Arizona Mirror

“Defund the police!” was a gift to MAGA, who easily co-opted it and made it their own call to arms. Smoking-gun proof, they crowed, of Democrats’ radical agenda indulging crime. It proved a deciding factor in the electoral-college victory of the most disastrous president in our country’s history.

We must not repeat that blunder with our anti-ICE rhetoric. Specifically, with absolutist terms like “Abolish ICE.”

Remember, what most of us moderates object to is not ICE’s legitimate mission of enforcing U.S. immigration laws. We understand that those laws exist for a reason, and that folks who break those laws should be held accountable. That includes deporting them…some of them. 

PHOTO: Getty Images

If we want to reform that mission, democracies do that by advocating and enacting legislation, not by outright sabotage.

Where the Trump regime has gone off the tracks is in their weaponizing this agency of Homeland Security to exact vengeance just on Trump’s political enemies. Their indiscriminate, Gestapo-like tactics. Their pointed denial of due process—a guarantee clearly mandated in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. 

And the well-documented brutality of some ICE agents who've been attacking not just the targets of their search for illegal aliens, but folks merely witnessing and documenting their abuses.

PHOTO: Jose Luis Magana/AP

So, yes, let’s keep calling out ICE for these illegal, immoral excesses. But drop the strident “Abolish ICE!” demands. What we want is for them to do their jobs, but in a way befitting a civilized, self-assured country, indeed one founded and grown by immigrants. 

This time, let’s be smarter. Show some discipline. Make sure our language suits our complaint. How about “No ICE Gestapo!”, “Unmask ICE!”, or “Stop Weaponizing ICE!”? You get the idea.

This time, make MAGA write their own call to arms.