Bend But Don’t Break

Why Trump’s “bend but don’t break” strategy might be exactly what the Republican Party needs — if we let it play out

Thom Tillis, retiring from the Senate, did an interview with Politico’s Dasha Burns, and in it he said that for the first time in his life, he might be a RINO — not, of course, due to anything he believes or has done, but because the “Republican Party has drifted so far from limited government, free markets, and federalism, which are the bedrock of any conservative thinker.”

I don’t know much about Tillis other than he got bruised up pretty badly in the fight over the Big Beautiful Bill and decided not to run for reelection. Overall, he sponsored bills primarily in the areas of health, immigration, crime and law enforcement, finance, international affairs, commerce, armed forces and national security, and taxation. Rather than being known as a hard liner, he has generally been regarded as a moderate Republican willing to work across party lines.

But what I see in Tillis’ dislike of Trump is a tendency I see in pretty much all Democrats in DC, too — the big exception being John Fetterman — and that is the penchant to use Trump as an excuse for a lack of desire to actually go after problem policies or the GOP to challenge progressive Democrats.

I’m only half kidding.

Democrats simply blame Trump for everything: their failures, his attempt to clean up their failures, the success of his policies — everything. Trump is the repository of all things Democrats hate. We have a few Republicans who like to do that, too. Rand Paul and Thomas Massie are among them. I respect Paul for his principles, but what have he and Massie produced other than bitching? They both like to think of themselves as the libertarian conscience in the Republican Party, particularly on issues of surveillance, government overreach, and restraint in foreign military involvement. Paul is better known as a disruptive voice and champion of civil liberties than as a traditional legislator passing large volumes of bills. I can’t really name one significant thing Massie has done.

That’s going to piss off some libertarians, but am I wrong?

I do get why some Republicans and many Trump supporters — including me — are frustrated with Trump. It does seem like he is all over the map these days, but I think that’s because Trump sees a bigger goal ahead than most of us do.

While conservatives gripe about Trump’s alleged neglect of free trade, he has been trying to reshape trade through tariffs, stopping wars to allow trade to take their place, and bleeding corrupt international organizations dry. He cut off USAID and other agencies that had been sending taxpayer funds to every Tom, Dick, and Harry around the world, and he cut off the UN — which just announced it is technically bankrupt. Ninety-five percent of the UN’s debt is owed to the United States. Trump has largely stopped the U.S. from acting as a global ATM.

Yes, the debt is a problem, but the largest creditor America has is America. Policymakers have used the printing presses to juice the economy, fund pet projects, and float off-the-books war spending to the point where our money is worth pennies compared to what it was worth twenty-five years ago.

I’m beginning to see what I hate about Trump’s plan.

My favorite college football team, the Ole Miss Rebels, never seems to have a great defense. They have some great players, but not a great defensive team across the board. And yet, even though their opposition can ring up a lot of yards between the twenties, those teams have a tough time scoring — while Ole Miss can light up the scoreboard on offense. They call it a “bend but don’t break” defense.

I think that’s what Trump is playing: a bend but don’t break defense. He has rung up a lot of points in his successes so far, and despite what we hear on MSNBC and CNN, the economy is doing well. Private sector jobs are growing while government jobs are down, and thanks to the immigration enforcement surge, illegal alien employment is falling as well. They are being replaced with American citizens, so the percentage increases aren’t telling the entire story. Rents in Los Angeles have fallen to their lowest level in twenty years, and apartment vacancies are increasing as illegal aliens self-deport. Trump is also going after the census and redistricting — two tools Democrats have used, maybe not to cheat, but to manipulate House representation, electoral votes, and in turn, elections.

If you look at a presidential term as a football game, each year is a quarter, and we have only played the first. There are three more to go. We don’t call a game after one, two, or three quarters and declare a winner. We play the full four, and often the fourth quarter is the most exciting and game-determining one.

I hate the “bend but don’t break” philosophy because I want to crush every opponent, and sometimes a win comes down to who has the ball when the clock is running down in the fourth quarter. It causes me high anxiety.

Senators and Representatives are like players on a team. They watch film, work out, they prepare — but they don’t craft the game plan. The head coach and his assistants do that. Their role is to play their position the best way they can.

If Republicans like Tillis can’t see the game plan, maybe it is best they leave the team and let us hit the transfer portal for a better player.

What I do know is that we can’t allow Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer to dictate our game plan.

Let’s play the full four before we call it a day.