Trump wasn’t expected to win the Presidency in 2016. “Expert” polling was leaning towards Hillary up until Election Day. And real estate marketer Trump was probably running partially in order to elevate his brand as the ratings slid on The Apprentice. This would explain at least partially Trump’s unpreparedness in his victory speech when the unthinkable happened. From Mary Jordan’s Art of Her Deal book on Melania:
“The election night win came as a surprise even to Trump, according to many on his campaign, and little preparation had been done for what came next. Trump had even talked about going to one of his golf courses in Scotland immediately after the election so he didn’t have to watch Hillary Clinton bask in her success. One campaign aide recalled that candidate Trump had ‘told the pilot [of his private jet], ‘Fuel up the plane.’ “
And yet it all came to naught. I have a theory about the main reason why Trump actually ran for President in 2015. In April 2011, the feud between then-President Obama and Trump on the birther issue had reached a boiling point. Obama released a shorter, legally binding "certification of live birth" in 2008, but that had failed to silence the issue on the far-right. To make things worse, CNN was cutting into broadcast stories with breaking “news” speeches and mini-rallies Trump was holding about Obama’s legitimacy. The legitimacy question was driving the President nuts. The administration had to make an actual special request from the state of Hawaii to get the long-form certificate released, finally putting the issue to rest. But President Obama would have his bit of flesh for Trump’s malevolent populism …
At the White House Correspondents Dinner that year, President Obama mercilessly roasted Trump. Trump, as anyone who has observed him for a period knows, has no sense of humor. He rarely laughs; rather he smirks and sneers (a sign, truly, of his character). And Trump’s greatest fear — the key fear of the autocrat manqué — is public humiliation. (Averted Gaze) In the video, you can see Trump seething yet forced to remain in place and take it all. I believe that is the moment Trump decided to take Washington over, to really show the laughing press corps something terrible.
Over twenty years in the trenches as a Trumpologist has taught me a thing or two about the man. For one, he does not play by the highly-regulated Marquis of Queensbery rules. Queensberry Rules, formulated in 1867 and named after the 9th Marquess of Queensberry, are the foundation of modern boxing . Joe Biden, the 46th President, called Trump after the assassination attempt on the 2024 campaign trail. Because — Queensberry rules. Codified respectfulness.
However, what is codified respectfulness to the shameless man who still “believes” he won the ‘22 election? The conversation was “good, short and respectful,” Biden relayed afterwards. All very civilized. In studied contrast, the 45th and 47th President plays by the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts. These rules allow for knees, elbows, takedowns and certain choke holds, which are essentially nearly unbreakable traps. It is not for the fainthearted or pointy headed “lib.” Populist nationalism is not analyzed in case studies at Harvard Law — it is a political sentiment felt in the guts and entrails. So it is no wonder that the Democrats lost on Election Day, appealing to the ideation of democratic norms when Trump was appealing to the instinct and the plasma. As if the majority of Americans would rather listen to Andrew Weissman than Joe Rogan or Theo Vonn.
Because Trump is far more Queens, New York after all than Queensbury Rules. And bloodsport is better suited to the present political reality than the standard but now rather obsolete checkers-chess analogy. Old outer-borough resentments, autocratic tendencies and Narcissistic Personality Disorder have led Trump down the path of visiting unholy vengeance upon his enemies — elites, whether in Manhattan or among the DC press corps — so deeply, that victory by any means necessary is entirely acceptable. “We are your refuge in an unfair, elite Democrat world,” the Trump campaign team successfully argued in 2024.
And tariffs — at least the way Trump wields them — are an economic instrument of retribution against everyone who ever laughed at “us.” Since the elite enemy is willing to use any tactic to maintain their advantage over “us,” to humiliate “us,” so can we. Two can play at that game, is the rationalization for the crooked shortcuts. Shamelessness dissolves all questions of a dead conscience. Just don’t let the ref see it. Or better yet, appeal the refs decision to a friendly Supreme Court.
Trump’s second season is relying on snares set for Democrats in which to get ensorcelled. Traps make for great reality television viewing, just ask Mark Burnett, former producer of “Survivor,” The Apprentice,” who is currently Trump’s special envoy to the UK …
But back to the subject specifically of traps. In the UFC and MMA in general, “trap moves” are strategic maneuvers where a fighter manipulates their opponent's movement options in order to set up attacks or create advantageous positions. This can involve feints and deceptions, hand wrapping, takedowns, controlled distance and angles. Or, in the case of American politics, a blitzkrieg of EOs in the first couple of weeks after Inauguration to keep the (already disheartened) opposition off-balance or divided by distraction. Trump signed 36 EOs in his first week as President, compared with four in his first term. It is hard to mount an offense when thirty-six punches are coming at you.
“Chaos,” “torrent” and “tsunami” is how this turbulent period has been described. Right after the bell, Trump charged, fully aware of the fact that he has only two years before midterms and subsequent irrelevance (should he not stand again for an irregular 3rd term, which remains to be seen). The EO blitzkrieg was a trap clearly calculated to rasp Democratic equilibrium. It was neatly calibrated to throw the Democrat Party off balance. There was no precedent; there was no warning. What EO to go after first? Even more difficult was the fact that so many of the EOs were built-in to trigger the libs into overreaction, allowing other EOs to slip into the political bloodstream, furthering the cause — mirabile dictu! — of the cult of the unitary executive.
Make no mistake, the Trump administration has set forth subtle and delayed-reaction traps for Democrats. Project 2025’s 900-page manual was written in 2022 by The Heritage Foundation in coordination with 140 former Trump staffers in order to reorganize the entire federal government agency system under a Christian nationalist unitary executive. Nearly two years into Trump’s time out of “the arena,” it was a diabolically well put together scheme to put the boot on the neck of women, brown and lgbt people. During the campaign, Trump repeatedly said that he hadn’t read the book and had nothing to do with Project 2025. And yet, here we are, deep in the thick of it.
Some traps are impromptu, like the one Governor Gretchen Whitmer fell into in what can only be properly construed as the unforced error of wanting to work with a President that won her state in 2024 by over 80,000 votes.
Benjamin Wittes recently talked to Tim Miller on The Bullwark about some of the upcoming legal snares the Trump administration has set and they ultimately lead to a conservative Supreme Court which may or may not continue to maximize the power of the Executive Branch. An example: Mercantilist tariffs — a discredited 18th century economic notion — that will all but certainly go to a Supreme Court that is obsessed with Originalism.
Also — Immigration is an issue that is laden with “Trump Traps.” But will the average American voter, who already thinks the Democrats have allowed the immigration issue to become a nightmare according to polls, listen to their argument for compassion? “So, politically speaking, my guess is that the Trump team likes the basic dynamic of this fight, which is that Democrats are pushing for a guy who came into the country illegally to be brought back to the U.S., while Trump is cracking down on people like him who never should have been in the country in the first place,” argues Chris Cilizza. And whatever one thinks about Chris Cilizza’s bloodless centrism, he has a point. Bloodless centrists voted for Trump on the economy and, like it or not, his view on immigration.
Senator Chris van Hollen of Maryland, to his credit, made the journey to El Salvador. It was not without political risks, including the bloodless political centrist position. Further, the Trump Traps are real (just ask Gretchen Whitmer). And of course, stuff happened. Trump’s regional ally, President Bukele, and his officials posted a photo of the Senator’s meeting with Abrego Garcia at a table with what appeared to be filled salted margarita glasses. Neither of them touched the drinks, which turned out to be a smart move, in retrospect.
Other Democrats — Robert Garcia (CA) and Robert Frost (FL) — followed to check up on Garcia. And as a result, Fox News bigot Laura Ingraham pressed Democratic Rep. Yassamin Ansari (Ariz.) about the visits last night, foreshadowing the partisan attacks to come. Trump’s side feel comfortable making these arguments and Democrats should take note. Jim Newell of Slate framed the problem facing Democrats on avoiding becoming ensnared:
The focus on this issue—as with any other development in American politics—is a source of anxiety and hand-wringing from some Democrats. Scar tissue from the 2024 election has them worried that Donald Trump is laying a trap, and they’re walking right into it. It’s only been a couple of weeks since Trump pressed a series of buttons that could well blow up the economy and America’s standing at the center of it, a cascading crisis leaving a meaningful dent in his support. Instead, the thinking goes, Democrats are allowing Trump to turn attention to one of his strongest issues—immigration—while feeding the cultural impression that Democrats are more concerned with foreigners than American citizens.
The decidedly cruel approach of immigration porn is fraught like a mined harbor. Further, the President has all but semtexed the federal registration requirement. But we cannot fail to note here the bludgeoning hammer approach that the Trump administration has taken to immigration has caused some unforced errors on his part as well. The hammer — as opposed to the scalpel — approach is bound to miss nuance. And the left has been able to capitalize on them, humanizing the deported by revealing their names and telling their stories.
Another cause celebre on the immigrant issue is Mohamed Khalil. Mahmoud Khalil is straight out of central casting as far as Republican unforced errors go. He is a permanent resident married to an American citizen that just gave birth to a baby. One political negative of his case is that he was studying at Columbia, which is anathema to MAGA. Still, at the time of the child’s birth, Khalil was being held at a remote Louisiana detention center. He requested to attend the birth of his child only to be denied. “I feel like this fact is going overlooked: Mr. Khalil is a lawful permanent resident currently being jailed by the United States government purely because they did not like his speech and want to deport him for his words,” as Aaron Reichlin-Melnick tweets.
Finally, there is the matter of Education. Trump is attacking the ivy league, knowing full well that legacy media organizations are staffed with graduates. Trump also knows full well that his strength is with non-college whites, blacks, latinos, Asians who make under $100,000. People, in fine, that did not go to Harvard. Progressive Lawrence O’Donnell is obsessed with the Harvard issue, despite the fact that the school is older than the United States and has an endowment bigger than the GDP of Jordan. It is naught else but an embarrassment for MSNBC, which professes to be of the people. The other day Rachel Maddow tried to get Lawrence to focus on the strategies of state schools, like the University of Massachusetts near where she lives, and what they are doing to combat Trump’s authoritarian creep into education. But, no, Lawrence did (yet) another show about Harvard, all but soliciting for donation (or at least publicizing alumni donations offsetting the Federal clawback of R&D funding.). Trump Trap set and sprung.
Trump’s Traps — on the ivies, on immigration and on the initial blitzkrieg of EOs — are very real. Republicans have gone from deriving sadistic enjoyment from “triggering the libs” to so-to-speak burying unexploded ordinance in the fields. And Democrats should step lively with the knowledge that these IEDs are strewn throughout this new and thorny political landscape waiting for a luckless pedestrian.
“(Gore) Vidal’s confrontations were not always restricted to word spats. He once wrote a graphic account of a brawl he had with a married merchant marine, whom he had picked up in Seattle. His most physically violent public clashes, though, were with Norman Mailer, author of The Naked and the Dead. In 1971, in the green room before an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, Mailer headbutted Vidal after Vidal compared him to convicted killer Charles Manson. Six years later, at a party in New York, Mailer punched Vidal to the floor, where he wiped a speck of blood from his mouth and said: ‘Once again words fail Norman Mailer.’ That was the thing about Vidal: he was extremely witty. When Richard Adams, author of Watership Down, called his work ‘meretricious’, the American instantly retorted, ‘Really? Well, meretricious to you and a happy new year.’” (Martin Chilton/The Independent)