Rope-a-Dope Trump

The Overlook

By Tom Clavin

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During the last few weeks, I have been urged repeatedly to write about President Trump and the activities of his new administration. One reason that I have not is the historian in me: At the very least, a new administration should be allowed the first hundred days to get its bearings. For example, John F. Kennedy is considered one of our better presidents but that would not be the case if the view of his presidency was based on the Bay of Pigs debacle in April 1961.

Another reason is that it seems just about everyone is already writing and broadcasting and podcasting and whatever about Donald Trump. What a barrage of turgid ink and noisy air we’re experiencing. Even the normally sensible New York Times has a page every Sunday devoted to “The Week in Trump.” I’ve been reluctant to pile on, plus what would I have to say that is anymore interesting or insightful than what is being said over and over again.

A third reason: The assumption is that whatever I write would be critical of the president and his actions and his positions. But I must wonder: What if he is right? I can hear the heads of friends and others exploding while reading this. Let’s remember that in 2024, for the first time in three presidential elections Donald Trump won the majority of the popular votes. Accept it or not, Trump is the candidate the majority of Americans wanted to be president, and now we’ve got him. Maybe those voters should not be disrespected, maybe they are not as deplorable as the snide and snooty criticism implies. Looking down on Trump has not only not worked as an opposition strategy, it has helped the MAGA movement to endure and grow. (I’ll wager, though, that Trump voters with evaporating 401k accounts are among the first to be having second thoughts.)

But I’ve been shaken out of my silence by James Carville, the longtime Democratic political operative whose op-ed piece published recently in The Times, “It’s Time for a Daring Political Maneuver, Democrats,” was an eye-opener. His suggestion: Let Trump be Trump and the chips will fall where they may . . . and then we clean up the mess and get back on track to decency and democracy.

To quote from Carville: “With no clear leader to voice our opposition and no control in any branch of government, it’s time for Democrats to embark on the most daring political maneuver in the history of our party: roll over and play dead. Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight and make the American people miss us. Only until the Trump administration has spiraled into the low 40s or high 30s in public approval polling percentages should we make like a pack of hyenas and go for the jugular. Until then, I’m calling for a strategic political retreat.

“The Army has a term for this: tactical pause. It’s a vision move — get out of the hour-to-hour, day-to-day combat where one side (ours) is largely playing defense and struggling to defend politically charged positions (like explaining D.E.I. or persuading voters to care about foreign aid) and take time to regroup, look forward and make decisions about where we want to get to over the next two years. I don’t think a lot of Americans are waiting around for us to use the same old arguments and same old language. They’re tired of it, and our Democratic voters are tired of watching us moan and groan to cover up our impotency out of power. They want us to be smarter than that.

“Our first major test in the art of strategic retreat is the Trump administration must get a budget passed that raises the debt ceiling. There are deep internal Republican divides over the budget: Republicans don’t know what they want to include, they don’t agree on an agenda, and they do not have a clear path forward. Mr. Trump has asked for an abolishment of the debt ceiling. Already, many Democrats across the party are itching at their seams for a showdown. Instead of gearing up to fight them — as we love to do — the most radical thing we can do is nothing at all.

“Let the Republicans disagree with themselves publicly. Do not offer a single vote. Do not insert yourself into the discourse. Do not throw a monkey wrench into the equation. Simply step away and let them flirt with a default. Just when they’ve pushed themselves to the brink and it appears they could collapse the global economy, come in and save the day. Be the competent party and not the chaos party.

“It’s time for everyone in our party, including the darlings who want to run in 2028, to understand this as well. You won’t win or achieve anything meaningful going toe to toe with the Trump administration right now.

“This equation must be applied for the remainder of this year. Let the Republicans push for their tax cuts, their Medicaid cuts, their food stamp cuts. Give them all the rope they need. Then let dysfunction paralyze their House caucus and rupture their tiny majority. Let them reveal themselves as incapable of governing and, at the right moment, start making a coordinated, consistent argument about the need to protect Medicare, Medicaid, worker benefits and middle-class pocketbooks. Let the Republicans crumble, let the American people see it, and wait until they need us to offer our support.

“It’s a wiser approach than we pursued in the first Trump administration, when Democrats tried and failed at the art of resistance politics. We voiced outrage on social issue after social issue. We spun ourselves up in a tizzy over an investigation into Russia. We fought Mr. Trump at every corner, on every issue imaginable and muddied up our message in an unwinnable war. We were saved only by his lousy governing and a lot of effort on our side finding good candidates to run for the House and Senate in 2018.

“It won’t take long. Public support for this administration will fall through the floorboard. It’s already happening. The president’s approval has already sunk underwater in two new polls. The people did not vote for the Department of Education to be obliterated; they voted for lower prices for eggs and milk. Democrats, let the Republicans’ own undertow drag them away.

“Half a century ago, Muhammad Ali cemented himself as the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time not by punching his way to glory but by mastering the art of the strategic retreat. Facing George Foreman, who was rolling off 37 knockouts and 40 wins, Ali deployed the famous rope-a-dope strategy, retreating to the ropes of the ring, evading punches right and left, absorbing small jabs, until Foreman’s battery was depleted — and in Round 8 deployed a decisive knockout blow.

“It’s Round 1. Let’s rope-a-dope, Dems.”

I could not have said it better. The Republicans have the White House and Congress. Let Trump and his MAGA minions try to lead domestically and internationally. If they do so effectively, the country and the world are better off for it. If they don’t, the felon and his friends will be swept into the dustbin of history and, I believe, reasonable and more selfless people will step up to govern. What better time for that to happen than next year, when we celebrate 250 years of democracy earned initially by freeing ourselves from a mad despot.

Tom Clavin is the author/co-author of 25 books, including, most recently, Bandit Heaven and, with Bob Drury, Throne of Grace, both published by St. Martin’s Press. To purchase copies, please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com.