Whistling Past the Apocalypse
Trump Falls Apart; the American Center Cannot Hold
Denial and magical thinking do not constitute a sound strategy. But Republican leadership in Washington is risking the security of the United States and the world with a close-your-eyes-and-cross-your-fingers response to a madman who threatens both.
Are you feeling lucky?
I’m temporarily feeling lucky because Donald Trump backed down once again. Earlier this week, he made this threat against Iran: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” he wrote on social media. “I don’t want that to happen,” he added, “but it probably will.” Then, at the last minute, he announced a cease-fire agreement.
“Prior to the ceasefire agreement, Trump had threatened to destroy bridges, power plants and water treatment facilities; moves that would imperil the entire population of Iran,” reported NPR. “Wide-scale destruction of infrastructure, without distinction between civilian and military objects, would be considered a war crime under international and U.S. law, legal experts tell NPR.”
Trump’s bluster has been tempered by his “TACO” behavior. “Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong coined ‘TACO trade’ in May 2025,” noted USA Today, “describing how some investors anticipate market rebounds amid Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff policies.”
TACO stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out.” He has a pattern of making bold threats, then backing down. He’s like a kid daring you to “step over this line” while constantly relocating the line. Wall Street observers and others seem to regard the pattern as evidence of self-regulation on Trump’s part, an indication that he knows how far is too far.
Will he continue to practice self-regulation? If we’re lucky.
But a social media post on Easter Sunday suggests we will not be that lucky. “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, as reported by The Washington Post. “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
That was the F-bomb heard ‘round the world. Not only did Trump offend Christians by desecrating a sacred holiday with profanity, but he also offended Muslims with his cynical invocation of Allah. More importantly, the post is evidence Trump is losing self-control. “Disinhibition has been used to explain clinical findings in many neurological and psychiatric disorders including dementia,” notes Edward D. Huey of Columbia University. “Taco Tuesday” will eventually end and won’t be coming back.
“Things fall apart,” wrote William Butler Yeats in “The Second Coming,” “the centre cannot hold.” He wrote the poem after World War I, revolutions in Russia and Ireland, and the Spanish Flu pandemic, all of which influenced him. The poem conveys dread, not hope. It was also unfortunately prophetic, describing “a world where the moral order had collapsed, and ominous forces were rising, symbolized by the ‘rough beast’ slouching towards Bethlehem. Yeats sensed that the post-war unrest and rise of figures like Hitler and Mussolini heralded a new era of anarchy.”
Is Donald Trump the “rough beast” of our times? Things are, indeed, falling apart. The American President seems to be losing his mind, and the nation and world are mortally endangered every day the power of annihilation reposes under his fingertips. This center cannot hold.
Trump has enjoyed widespread support among Republican elected officials and other influential MAGA commentators, but his desecration of Easter and the threat to wipe out “a whole civilization” make continued support less certain. How can they let a man control the government when he cannot control himself? Will Republicans step up for the sake of America in 2026 the way they did in 1974, when Republican leadership convinced Richard Nixon to resign?
Noting that “Lawmakers remain out of Washington on a previously scheduled recess,” NPR reports that “more than three dozen Democrats have called for Trump to be removed from office, while most congressional Republicans have not made public comments.” “The few Republicans who weighed in on the war Tuesday were near-uniformly supportive of the president’s approach,” added NPR, “while not directly addressing his call for the total elimination of the Iranian civilization…”
But the officeholders’ tepid support may be outweighed by a growing rebellion within the MAGA ranks. “As President Donald Trump terrifies everyone around the world into thinking human civilization may end at 8 p.m. Tuesday,” wrote Finn Hartnett in The New Republic, “a growing number of political figures are calling for his removal, including a handful of slightly less spineless Republicans.”
The American media is still trying to figure out how to cover Trump’s increasingly apparent decomposition. Noting that Trump is “now openly engaging in apocalyptic salt-the-earth style threats,” Dan Froomkin of Press Watch argues for more aggressive news coverage. “This is insane, untenable, inhumane language,” he wrote. “Journalists everywhere should be sounding alarms. People need to start telling him ‘no’. This has to stop.”
Trump has, apparently, served up one more “TACO.” “President Trump said Tuesday he has agreed to a ‘double sided CEASEFIRE’ with Iran,” reported CBS News, “less than two hours before his deadline for Iran to either cut a deal with the U.S. or face massive strikes on its power plants.”
I’ve lived in southern Arizona all my life and I know this: sometimes you run out of tacos. Trump is likely to back down again, maybe several more times. But can we endure 33 months hoping a dangerously addled president can summon restraint? Can we keep our fingers crossed for a thousand days?
Many, perhaps most, Republican officeholders seem to think we can, but lucky streaks eventually end. When they end catastrophically, we all know what it means.
Things fall apart.