Trump Doesn't Have the Balls for This

Expect him to end this war posthaste.

A.I.-generated image. Credit: Shutterstock.

Last week, the price of oil closed up 36 percent.

That ain’t good, folks. True, this is not 1979, when the economy was highly dependent on energy. But the price of gas still matters.

Not only that, but the Persian Gulf’s importance to the global economy is much greater than it was back then, and for reasons that have nothing to do with oil. The Gulf states have become key economic hubs, with Dubai, in particular, serving as one of the world’s major financial centers.

If the war continues to spread beyond Iran, the economic consequences will reverberate around the globe and come back to bite America in the ass. Are you familiar with the private credit market? If not, it might be time to google it.

And don’t forget that this is an election year. An unpopular, destructive war, if prolonged, will eventually cause opposition to spread to the GOP.

Trump can handle pushback from the Democrats (to the extent that they actually give any). But whenever it crops up in his own party, he starts running scared.

The pattern, by this late date, has repeated itself too many times for anyone to be surprised.

First, Trump does something crazy. He puffs himself up like a blowfish, hurling threats and executive orders without any awareness of the predictable consequences.

Then, when said consequences inevitably arise—in the form of civil resistance, media criticism, misgivings from prominent allies, or market volatility—he panics. At that point, he casts his humiliating defeat as a victory and goes back to yelling at the TV.

The current war is no different: He got into it because he’s a reckless dumbass and will get out of it because he’s a coward.

How much of a coward is he? Let us count the ways.

Doing the Taco Dance

“I love the smell of deportations in the morning,” he posted in September 2025 as he announced the expansion of his ethnic cleansing campaign to Chicago. But after street protests, pushback from the governor, and a flurry of lawsuits, he withdrew his jackboots with his tail between his legs.

Remember “Liberation Day,” when he slapped arbitrary tariffs on every penguin-occupied rock in the cosmos? “MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE,” he thundered at the time.

Within a week, he reversed course, instituting a 90-day tariff freeze for most countries. The reason? The markets started to panic, and he became frightened.

For Trump, market volatility is a scary monster under the bed. Weeks after it forced his tariff climbdown, another market drop made him abandon his attempt to fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

Later, in November, Trump renewed his tariff nonsense, announcing rates exceeding 100 percent on Chinese imports. Beijing responded by restricting the export of rare earth metals.

Presumably, someone in his orbit proceeded to explain to him what “rare earth metals” are. At the ensuing trade talks, he all but capitulated.

The same month, a federal judge ruled that Lindsey Halligan, the interim U.S. Attorney leading the prosecutions of James Comey and Letitia James, had been unlawfully appointed. Instead of doing the reasonable thing by stepping aside, she continued to occupy her office like a child playing dress-up.

In January, another federal judge slammed Halligan for “masquerading as the United States Attorney for this District in direct defiance of binding court orders.”

Did Trump continue to fight? No, he simply gave up. Hours after the ruling came down, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced an end to the administration’s bid to keep Halligan in the role.

And remember the time he slapped a 50-percent tariff on Brazil? Not for any economic reason but because President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had the temerity to refuse his demand to interfere in the prosecution of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro? (Bolsonaro was on trial for trying exactly what Trump failed to pull off at the end of his first term—that is, staying in office despite losing reelection. Unlike America, Brazil has a functioning criminal justice system.)

Soon afterward, Lula delivered a veritable smackdown to Trump during his opening address at the United Nations General Assembly.

A big tough guy like Trump would surely bristle at such insolence, right? Evidently not. Upon encountering Lula after the speech, the American president “insisted he had no hard feelings” toward the Brazilian leader. He even gave him a hug.

Then, of course, there was Greenland. Back in January, the world was holding its collective breath in anticipation of a U.S. invasion. But for once, America’s erstwhile European allies stood up to the president. deploying troops to the territory and forcing him into yet another retreat.

Since then, we have heard precisely nothing from Trump about annexing Greenland.

He got into this war because he’s a reckless dumbass and will get out of it because he’s a coward.

Last but not least was the aborted deportation surge in Minnesota. While not halted altogether, it was drastically scaled back following a brilliant civil resistance campaign. Not only did everyday Minnesotans impede the roundups, but the administration’s disproportionate response recoiled on itself.

The backlash to the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti quickly spread to the Republican Party. When it did, Trump freaked out and commenced one of his typically desperate searches for an offramp. He demoted Gestapo-enthusiast Greg Bovino, relieved Kristi Noem of operational responsibility, and announced a pull-out of federal law-enforcement.

Across the country, meanwhile, I.C.E. and Border Patrol have abandoned their indiscriminate sweeps, pivoting to more targeted enforcement operations and reducing their public visibility. Inevitably, the change is yielding fewer arrests.

Donny Little Hands

Who knew that a guy that spends his days pissing and moaning about how mistreated he is turns out to be less than a paragon of steely resolve?

Let’s face it: Trump can’t take the heat. When the going gets modestly taxing, he chickens out.

Over and over again, he barrels headlong into crises of his own making before realizing, “wait a minute, this might be bad.” Then, like George Costanza in a birthday party fire, he rushes for the exit, trampling every child and granny in his path.

When the markets keep tanking and the body bags start coming back, do you really think that Trump, of all people, will have the mettle stick it out?

At some point—certainly within the next three weeks—this war will come to an end. Expect the customary hollow victory declaration followed by a rapid force drawdown. “We’ve taught the Iranians a lesson and achieved our objectives,” he will insist.

This is not hard to do when you had no objectives in the first place aside from swinging your dick around.

Trump is a coward. That does not make him any less dangerous. But it does provide some mercy when his impulsive ineptitude threatens catastrophe.