The "Never-Mind" presidency

Trump does more flips than Hirito Ogiwara on snow. Plus: Coming Soon

Jan 22, 2026

There’s to be no punishing tariffs on Denmark, or any other European nation that refuses to give Greenland to America. There’s also to be no military force used to take that island. But, “we will remember.” Will we? I think Europe will remember long after the man who made that promise is out of the picture, but President Donald Trump has likely moved on to the next scheme. Oh, don’t worry, Greenland won’t go away; there are more episodes coming. What you must remember, and what I’ve been saying for years, is that Trump politics is essentially performative. Things are done for how they look, how they play on the stage of media, the public, and the world. If Trump’s worldview were a planet, it would be a gas giant, with no surface, just an enormous cloud. The only fixed things are that people of power, those who’ve got “it,” call the shots, and those who don’t, don’t matter, they are part of the audience.

It’s clear that the besuited Continentals and North American dainties who attend Davos are part of the audience for Trump. They always have been. They are the ones he sneers at, the exclusive clubs who look down upon him. He threatens, he preens, he rehearses his litanies of their softness, their snubs against him. But in the end, Trump flips. Whether it’s Europe, or China, or Canada and Mexico, the threats never come to pass.

Just in the first year of his second term, Trump has flipped at least a half dozen times on tariffs. The 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico were on in February 2025, then paused two days later, then on again in March, but exempted most goods two days after that. It was all for show, to snub the negotiators and trade economists who so carefully constructed rational guidelines. It showed who calls the shots.

Then there was “Liberation Day” on April 2. By the end of April, most of those were paused while bilateral “deals” were negotiated, most of which haven’t been finalized. Once again, the economists and framework-makers were shown who’s boss. In April and May, Trump implemented tariffs as high as 145 percent against China, which caused a tit-for-tat. Chinese President Xi Jinping doesn’t have to show anyone who’s boss. His enemies aren’t an audience to be snubbed; they simply disappear. By the end of May, there was a “deal,” and in June the “framework” was announced but never completed. By the end of October, China retaliated by threatening 100 percent tariffs, and Trump relented, allowing AI chip sales. The “framework” got put on the back burner “for later.”

And now, the Greenland tariffs were announced, and retracted all within a week. The audience tires of this plot. The media eats it up.

Meanwhile, real things happen in the world. Iran’s repressive regime has largely quashed massive protests over the economy and other shortages. They used enormous force and reportedly killed tens of thousands of their own citizens. Our military played deployment games but never moved against the regime. We have sunk speedboats in the Atlantic. We’ve boarded a few oil tankers. We showed off our military skill in plucking the head of a foreign government from his fortress.

Trump announced a “Board of Peace” for Phase 2 of the Gaza cease-fire plan. He wants a billion dollars for nations to join. Only Hungary has taken him up on it. China is thinking about it (prediction: they’ll never join). Another prediction: Trump will flip on the Board o Peace and declare Gaza unsolvable, handing the problem back to Israel and Egypt. Perhaps the yeoman’s work of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will bear some fruit, but Hamas will never willingly disarm. We’ve given them a giant slice of legitimacy since they agreed to dissolve their government and hand it over to the Board of Peace. They get a free pass now to fight on.

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Trump’s position on this? “Never mind.” Just like the Greenland tariffs. It’s all a show to him. To the actual despots, nothing is a show, except show trials that end with a bullet to the back of the head. (The Soviets used to start with the execution and have the trial afterward.)

Budget savings? DOGE? Never mind. The only thing that Trump hasn’t flipped on is immigration. Not only have we effectively ended most legal forms of immigration, we’ve experienced a net decrease in immigration for the first time in a half century. Even this is a show.

Prosecutions against Trump’s political rivals? The courts strike them down and the administration drops the effort. Congress does nothing. They know the script. They know the flip.

The audience moves on to the next outrage. The media moves on to the next show. Those who have been injured, detained, deported, treated unfairly, fleeced, or otherwise disappointed don’t think it’s a show. They remember. Voters will remember in November.

The next episode may take Trump right up to the line of the 25th Amendment (not the first time), or into the political drama of a third impeachment, once Democrats control Congress. That will consume the nation for a while. It won’t change the result for the gas giant of presidents. The “Never Mind” presidency will continue uninterrupted.

Coming Soon

The narrative of ICE, protesters, and illegal immigration is simple, depending on which side you’re on. But the truth is more complicated. Now it’s been revealed that new ICE Deportation Officers (DOs) have been trained using a legal standard that doesn’t regard the 4th Amendment as supreme. Is the entire mission of ICE a pretext for something far more sinister? Or is it simply enforcing immigration law?

It’s possible both are true. I’m going to riff on this, probably next week.

Also, I owe readers my take on China and its economic goals, space goals, technology goals, and cultural goals. It’s coming, I promise.

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