Hello! Normally on OMGreg we go into news of the day, political trends, or cultural moments, but sometimes it’s good to step back and talk about bigger things.

This is one of those times — a time for an OMGreg Canon Law. What is a Canon law? In this context, it’s a law or truth that is definitional in our modern politics. Something that motivates a ton of news and votes and discussion. But it’s also something that has (in my opinion) not been articulated clearly enough. So as these Canon laws pop up, we’ll tackle things that Are True but are also Are Something You Yell At Your TV because no one is saying them.

They get explained once here, and then I (or you) can reference back to them in subsequent moments to save time and energy.

This Canon Law: Donald Trump is a NYC cab driver.

In NYC, there is a very specific type of rude behavior that’s allowed in the social structure. And it’s this — I bet you’ll let me be rude and get the upper hand versus starting conflict to stop me. The prime example is in traffic. A cab will cut you off dangerously close to your car, because they know that even if you honk and protest and scream, you’d rather let them cut you off than have a fender bender and all the subsequent headaches. They will be rude and threaten to ruin both your days, and you will fold and give them what they want. This happens millions of times a day in NYC. If you tried it in Phoenix, someone might follow your car and reenact Mad Max. If you tried it in Kansas City, it’d be the only thing the person talked about all day. But in New York, it’s just how it goes.

This is Trump’s one negotiating strategy. And somehow it works over and over and over again. It works with Republicans, it works with Democrats, it works with giant corporations, it works with other nations.

I think a reason this doesn’t get laid out as clearly when talking Trump Strategy falls on another OMGreg Canon Law: The Press Thinks Someone In Power Is Smart and Well-Intentioned Because How Else Could They Gain Power. So each leverage play becomes 5D chess that fills several feet of column space and several hours of tv segments.

In reality, it’s just that yellow cab cutting into traffic on 5th Ave. Now, the good news here is that there’s actually an incredibly effective response to this play. And it’s simple.

You just call their bluff. Because that cab driver probably has 3 tickets and wild insurance rates, and when push comes to shove that bluster is going to turn into either (a) backing down or (b) hitting your car and begging you to settle it in cash because if you start making phone calls they’re absolutely screwed.

The reason that everyone from Schumer to Stephanopoulos get dog-walked by Trump over and over is that if they have to choose between letting him be crazy or beating him by embracing their own crazy, they’ll always choose the first one. Decorum, lack of conflict, preservation of the comfortable status quo — all of those are more safe and appealing than the alternative. Than meeting leverage with leverage, even if it’s scary.

Here’s the moral lesson at the end of our canonical journey: If you do this to Trump, you will win. It is rarely tried, but always effective. From the GOP primaries of 2016 to today, opponents have laid down, run away, and neutered themselves in an attempt to out-strategize the intellectual equivalent of a snow-plow. Push back and win.

And now, as the setting sun finally touches the horizon and the words “lame duck” whisper louder and louder across the Congressional cafeteria, some are trying. And succeeding. More should try — maybe Iran forcing him to back down on the war for over a week because they called his bluff isn’t the best example — but more non-dictatorships should try. Look at the clashes of Trump 2.0. Look where there was sustained opposition even at personal or political risk. And look at how that cab driver taps the brakes and lets you go by.

That can seem hard, because it requires an ingredient the American people supply in abundance but elected leadership seems allergic to: a hard moral code. I know I’m the one who suggested it three paragraphs ago, but the Rorschach mentality - “we’re both trapped in here and I’m as crazy as you” — ends up with you being crazy. So I think there’s a better comic book panel to reference as we close this out. Same strategy, same point, same direction… but a better motivation.

There’s a phrase used a lot in the labor movement, and by my own union the WGAE: when we fight, we win. And I always note that the first word in that sentence is the most important. When. And the answer, as it always is, is now.

Telling a President to move gets easier and easier the closer they are to the door. That’s being seen in some Congressional races, it’s certainly happening with the mano/podosphere, and even with some people in the press corps. But most of the media still warp their headlines around making him seem mentally fit and law-abiding, and most of the GOP is in lockstep with whatever’s just come out of his social media account. The pushback is not strong, even if the strategy is simple.

So there it is! One reality named and (sometimes) addressed. See you for the next one.