The truth of Trump’s terrible November? His weapons are losing their potency

3 months ago 7

Opinion

November 20, 2025 — 3.42pm

If you’re struggling to make it through to the end of the year, weighed down with problems and pressures, spare a thought for US President Donald Trump. His November has already been so dire that by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, he might need to save the traditional turkey pardon for himself.

Trump’s troubles started a few weeks ago when something odd started to happen: his tried-and-true methods for getting his way suddenly stopped working. Like the US’s ageing nuclear arsenal, Trump’s weapons of choice: insults, strongarm tactics, demands of absolute loyalty and distraction, have started to lose their potency. It might be a temporary glitch or it might be the first glimpse into the remainder of Trump’s lame-duck term.

US President Donald Trump talks up his investment deal with Saudi Arabia in the White House on Tuesday.

Coining insulting nicknames for his opponents, like Crooked Hillary and Sleepy Joe, is a Trump trademark. So naturally, when a MAGA civil war erupted over the release of the Epstein files last week, Trump went to denigrate ally-turned-critic, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene on social media, writing: “Marjorie Taylor Brown (Green grass turns Brown when it begins to ROT!)” Jokes that require Cliff Notes rarely fare well and rather than gaining traction the clunky insult was widely mocked.

Things took an infinitely worse turn when Trump tried again, this time insulting her as “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Green” (sic). Instead of cowering Taylor Greene into submission, she held a press conference outside the US Capitol, flanked by Epstein’s victims. “Let me tell you what a traitor is,” Taylor Greene said. “A traitor is an American that serves foreign countries and themselves. A patriot is an American that serves the United States of America and Americans…”

The woman who personifies the most extreme wing of MAGA is now suggesting that the US president is a traitor – to his country and supporters. That narrative is out there now and it’s not being pushed by Democrats but by someone who has the trust of the MAGA die-hards. It shows the chasm that has opened up between Trump and the MAGA faithful over the Epstein files.

Last Friday, Trump’s insult gun fired into his foot again. Bloomberg White House correspondent, Catherine Lucey, had asked him a question about his then opposition to releasing the Epstein files. Jabbing a finger at her, he admonished “Quiet, piggy!” Trump, who has often been praised for his political instincts, apparently forgot that he was answering a question concerning the issue of the abysmal treatment of women by powerful American men.

What Trump wanted at that moment was to shut down the conversation around his alleged knowledge of, and possible involvement with, Epstein’s long history of degrading females. What he accomplished instead was to remind everyone that he has a long history of publicly denigrating women.

The Epstein files was also behind the failure of Trumpian strongarm tactics last week. The discharge petition to force a vote on the release of the Epstein files required 218 signatures. Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, (another far-right figure like Taylor Greene) was called into the Situation Room, in an attempt to pressure her to remove her signature from the petition. Boebert refused, becoming yet another significant MAGA figure to prioritise her loyalty to MAGA over Trump. Trump has always wielded his demand for fealty from every vassal in his orbit like a terrifying sword of Damocles but the sword would now appear to be in need of sharpening.

Facing the humiliation of Congress openly defying him, Trump caved on the release of the files saying, “we have nothing to hide”. Things moved quickly from there with both the House and the Senate voting in favour of the Epstein Files Transparency Act and Trump signing the bill on Thursday. (Fun fact: if Trump has nothing to hide, why did his administration spend months refusing to release the files and make Congress jump through hoops to pass legislation that essentially forces Trump to do something he always had the power to do?)

Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene at a news conference in support of Epstein victims on Tuesday.

When all else fails, it’s usually time to break out the defensive weapons, like distraction. But his go-to distractions have only highlighted the broken trust between Trump and the people who voted for him. The threat of US military action in Venezuela sits in direct opposition to Trump’s campaign promises to end US involvement in “forever wars”. Trump’s pet project, the construction of an opulent new White House ballroom, is terrible optics in the middle of an affordability crisis.

A swathe of Democrat electoral victories this month have sent a chill through the Republican Party. Exit polls revealed that Democrats won in Virginia and New Jersey, not by turning out more Democrat voters, but by flipping a significant number of Trump supporters.

Rounding out Trump’s backfiring and broken arsenal was his most beloved economic weapon: tariffs. While Trump has always maintained that tariffs don’t increase consumer prices, this time reality refused to bend to Trump’s will. With Americans facing record high food prices, Trump was forced into a chastening reversal. Last week he signed an executive order removing tariffs from hundreds of grocery items, including Australian beef.

Despite using all the weapons that have served him so well in the past, the result of Trump’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad November was that he lost bigly. His coalition has self-imploded, he’s turned a valuable ally into an enemy, the Democrats finally got up off the mat, the Epstein files are going to dominate headlines for the foreseeable future and everyone is googling a horse named Bubba. (I don’t have the intestinal fortitude to explain that one. In the words of Q-Anon, do your own research.)

Apologies for mixing my animal metaphors but unless the “dog that hasn’t barked”, as Epstein called Trump, can learn some new tricks, it’s looking like lame duck, not turkey, might be on the menu this Thanksgiving.

Melanie La’Brooy is a novelist who writes on politics and social justice issues.

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