Attribution: Grok, prompted by @tRumpnado2016 on X, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By Geoff Carter
The Teflon is wearing thin. Donald Trump is no longer impervious to the slings and arrows of satirical barbs and jabs. Somehow his rudeness, crudeness, criminality, corruption, incompetence, arrogance, narcissism, and macho posturing have gone largely uncriticized (or at least disproportionately undercriticized), but now—after his incredibly inept handling of the economy, (specifically his wild waffling over his incredibly idiotic tariffs), his overt and spectacular corruption (a gifted $400 million-dollar jet), and his appointment of a reportedly drug-addled billionaire donor to take a chainsaw to everything from the National Parks Service to the VA to Social Security to The Department of Education, the eight-year honeymoon finally seems to be coming to an end.
The January 6th insurrection was widely thought—and should have been—the deal breaker between Trump and the American people. So should an affair with a porn star and thirty-four felony convictions (probably only the tip of his felonious iceberg). On top of these transgressions, Trump cruelly mocked a disabled reporter, deflected numerous accusations of sexual assault, enlisted the help of white supremacist group The Proud Boys, pardoned over a thousand rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6th, and has repeatedly and contemptuously lied to the American people. Yet, even with all this baggage, enough Republicans, including mainstream as well as MAGA cultists, voted to put him back in the White House. None of his past transgression stuck to him. The man is Teflon.
No longer. While there has always been a minority of rational scientists and free-thinking liberals who have repeatedly called out the orange man for lying or bungling or just being stupid (remember his recommendation to drink bleach for Covid?), most of it has rolled off him like water off a duck. Even after his felony convictions, being indicted for conspiracy in Georgia and for inciting the January 6th riot, he never served a day in jail—and probably never will. He is Teflon.
He is a huckster. He is a convicted criminal. He is a pathological liar. And he’s gotten away with everything. Why? Maybe because he’s a celebrity. Maybe because he’s rich. I can’t think of any other reason—but apparently there’s something. Granted, while I think he’s a shrewd marketer, I don’t believe he’s very smart—or at least very-well educated. He sure doesn’t seem that way. He’s also pigheaded—as well as being piggish—and too arrogant to admit he’s wrong or that anyone says he’s anything less than what he mistakenly thinks he is.
But now there seem to be the beginnings of a tectonic shift. Thanks to his mistaken belief that tariffs will bring other countries to their knees, he has become the target of a phrase coined by Robert Armstrong of The Financial Times, who described his inconsistent stances on tariffs as TACO, or “Trump Always Chickens Out”—a very apt turn of phrase. Armstrong is right. This is exactly the president’s pattern. He blusters, threatens, raises the stakes, and when no one else blinks, he backs down. He caves. He wusses out. And his tariffs have done nothing except him make him an international laughingstock.
During the election, he boasted that he would end the Ukrainian War on his first day in office. Of course, because Trump thought that he and Vladmir Putin were such good friends, he maintained he’d be able to negotiate peace in a heartbeat, but when Putin did not respond to Trump’s overtures for a peace or even a ceasefire, and instead responded by launching more drone strikes against the Ukraine, Trump was reduced to feckless ranting on social media.
According to The New York Times, the Russian attack “prompted Mr. Trump to describe Mr. Putin as “absolutely CRAZY!” and to warn that Russia was “playing with fire.” Mr. Putin’s spokesman in turn dismissed Mr. Trump’s comments as an “emotional reaction.”’
Congressional Republicans seem to be beginning to wonder whether Putin has been exploiting his “bromance” with Trump to string him along. He has described his buddy “Putin as “savvy” and “genius” for invading Ukraine, while bragging about his “very, very good relationship” with the autocratic Russian leader. (The New York Times). He also publicly berated Ukrainian President Zelensky in the Oval Office, falsely accusing him of starting the war (ironically saying Zelensky held no cards, proven completely wrong after the brilliant Ukrainian drone strike on Russian air forces.)
But apparently the bromance is over. Trump has been dumped. Putin is not paying attention to any of the president’s overtures of peace or friendship. And, for Trump, calling his reaction “an emotional overstrain” was very likely a serious blow to his tissue-thin ego. After all, he sees himself as a strongman, modeling himself after authoritarian leaders like Putin or Hungary’s Orlov. Trump no doubt reads the Russians portrayal him as emotional as an accusation of weakness. Real men don’t have tantrums. Or do they? He looks like a baby throwing a tantrum. The Teflon is chipping away.
And now, with the TACO label sticking, Donald Trump is finding himself as a very visible object of derision. His implementation of tariffs, his economic nuclear arsenal, has failed miserably. Whatever delusion had fueled the idea that taxing the hell out of imports would scare other countries was—to be kind—misguided. To be realistic—just plain stupid.
Social media memes of Trump dancing to the “Taco Man” parody of “Macho Man” by his favorite band The Village People—does he fancy himself as a macho, macho man like his good buddy Vlad?—or graphics of his face on a taco or him dancing with or being chased by chickens are everywhere. A photo of TACO being skywritten over Mar-a-Lago appeared this morning on Facebook.
There have always been memes mocking the president’s weirdly orange complexion and his intricately engineered combover but social media posts mocking his masculinity and strongman sensibility has got to hurt. When a reporter asked him about the TACO label at a White House press conference, he responded by saying ‘“I chicken out? I’ve never heard that,” he said. “Don’t ever say what you said,” he told the reporter. “That’s a nasty question. To me, that’s the nastiest question”’ (TheNewYorkTimes).
The bullying, the threats, and the bluster are finally—thank God—wearing thin with the American people, and now that he has surrounded himself with yes men and cronies instead of professional bureaucrats, Trump’s incompetence is becoming more and more obvious. He has been behaving like a destructive two-year-old but has always been forgiven for it. Now—maybe—that his MAGA supporters realize that he will happily send Elon Musk off to slash their Medicaid and raid their Social Security and destroy their democracy, and that his late-night tweets are as emotional and juvenile and nasty as the screeds of a twelve-year-old girl, they will start making the consequences of his actions stick to the Teflon man.
The Teflon is wearing away. Let’s hope it’s not too late to make reality stick to the reality star.