TKO a Trumper with these three simple phrases
Let’m exhaust themselves
Jeffrey Denny
When a boxing coach suggested to Muhammad Ali that he take an opponent’s punches until the guy tired out, and then knock him out, The Greatest famously replied, “So, you want me to be a rope-a-dope?”
Rope-a-dope worked for Ali against George Foreman. It could work for you, with a metaphorical TKO, next time a MAGA corners you at a BBQ regurgitating the latest Fox “news” hilariously spinning for Donald Trump and smearing the libs.
I check the Fox app daily to see what Trump propaganda the network is feeding millions of Americans who lap it up.
A mere hours after the Pope died, for instance, Fox headlined, “Trump reacts to Pope Francis’s death at White House — says religion is ‘back in America’.” Amid embattled Defense Secretary Pete “Total Chaos” Hegseth’s countdown to defenestration, “White House hits back on ‘shattered ego’ leakers and has choice words on chat rumors.” And then, of course, “Dems helped MS-13 suspect ditch mega-prison — and his new digs are a prisoner’s dream.”
I can also learn the latest from Fox by talking with a tennis pal who’s in the tank for Trump. Recently, I mentioned a mutual friend who lives on Nantucket (we’re beyond the ribald limerick, by the way). My tennis pal said, “What about the six beaches they closed because shards of a windmill blade washed up?”
Instead of letting my amygdala hijack me and argue back — the old “wrestling with a pig” warning comes to mind — I let my cerebral cortex take the ring. Sure enough, it came up with three simple phrases to rope-a-dope my friend into knocking himself out:
1. You’re not wrong
This increasingly popular response is condescending passive aggression at its finest. In this example, I meant, “Yeah, I know, you heard that on Fox because it loves to mock climate change and clean energy. But I thought we were talking about our friend.”
2. That’s what they tell me
Famously spoken by George Costanza (S09E07, The Slicer). His boss, Mr. Kruger of Kruger Industrial Smoothing, sees an old picture of George and says, “Well, I’ll be … you have lost a lot of hair.” George replies, “That’s what they tell me!”
AI says this is “a phrase often used to express a degree of skepticism or disagreement with something someone else says, implying that it’s not the whole story or that there’s more to it than they’re letting on.”
In this case, I meant, “Yeah, wind turbines sometimes break. But sometimes oil rigs and gas lines explode, nuclear plants leak, and coal mines collapse, and we don’t stop using fossil fuels, do we, nincompoop?”
3. Well, that’s where we are
The polite equivalent of a dismissive shrug, the old “whatevs,” has a dual meaning — acceptance of reality and, as I meant, “that’s where we are in this friendship, where you try to trigger me into a stupid argument that just pisses us off? Why?”
These phrases worked — my pal got bored and left. I take that as a TKO for me.
We know why some people love to argue. Sometimes for fun, like a tennis match. But often it’s out of orneriness arising from the bottomless need to salve insecurity by picking a meaningless fight, dodging and weaving legitimate points, and claiming victory, however hollow or pyrrhic. The sad bully syndrome.
This, of course, explains why Trumpers, their hero, and their media are so disagreeable about people they disagree with. And irrationally willing to destroy the country they claim to love, even if it hurts them and their friends, family, and community. You almost feel pity when they try to argue politics. Except it’s not just exploring a difference of opinion. They’re taking you and the country down with them.
So there’s no point in throwing down with a Trumper. You both get dirty and they like it. That’s where we are.
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer.
