Championship Rounds
Just Beat Him Up
Despite my personal political differences with 80% of the audience and 100% of the ownership, I love mixed martial arts and the Ultimate Fighting Championship as sport. In a UFC fight, the difference between a contender and a champion is often not skill but endurance. Most fighters spend their careers in three-round bouts. Fifteen minutes of violence, adrenaline, and focus. Brutal but survivable. Fifteen minutes is a long time when you’re eating strikes and have to instantly transition from the oxygen-deprived isometric hell of high-level grappling to the twitchy explosivity of striking (there is nothing more exhausting in sports). 15 minutes hurts.
Despite that, a title fight is different. Even worse. Five rounds. Twenty-five minutes. By the fourth and fifth, technique erodes, lungs burn, and the smallest lapse in concentration can mean getting put to sleep. The “championship rounds” are where fights are truly decided.
That is where America is now.
Donald Trump’s rise and persistence in American politics can be understood in the same way. Early rounds were chaotic. Trump won some. His opponents won some. There were moments of shock, moments of resistance, moments of regrouping. Pink hats. George Floyd. COVID. “Suckers and losers.” January 6th. Biden. Harris. Epstein. Each felt decisive in the moment. Each felt like it had to be the turning point.
But fights don’t end because of what happened in round one.
They end because a lapse in concentration leads to a mistake, or accumulative attacks lead to attrition.
We are in the championship rounds now, and what matters is no longer the highlight reel. What matters is endurance, discipline, and will.
What’s in front of us is stark. The 250th anniversary of the American founding, either as a recommitment to democratic self-government or as an empty ceremony masking its erosion. The further normalization of a Trump-aligned paramilitary culture that blurs the line between political loyalty and intimidation. Masked men cheering shots fired into a prostate protestor or hyping themselves up with “whose fucking city is this?” are not participating in law enforcement, they are participating in tribal violence. You do not need a PhD in anthropology to see the commonalities between this and the Maori Haka.
There is nothing more dangerous in human history than the machinery and resources of a modern Westphalian state ensconced in tribal blood-heat.
These are not symbolic rounds. These are the rounds where championships are decided.
This phase is harder than what came before. There is no novelty left. No easy outrage. We’re not going to see a 3-point dip when Trump tweets about “very fine people on both sides.” Trump has found enough fascists to bet on violence over any genuflection towards unity. The mirage that our President cares anything about two thirds of the population (aside from conquering them) has evaporated. We can be under no illusion that one march, one speech, or one election will settle everything. Fatigue is real. Cynicism is tempting. That is exactly why these rounds matter most.
And yet, we can win.
In MMA, fighters don’t win the fifth round with wild swings. They win with fundamentals. Pressure. Balance. Refusing to be broken. A crisp 1-2 combination in round five is effective in a way it wouldn’t be in the opening round. The tools available now are not flashy, but they are effective, and they’ve been landing throughout the fight. Protest. Court decisions. Organizing. Voting. Amplifying. The very real possibility of taking the House and seizing back the initiative.
Trump himself has shown what he fears. He blinks under sustained scrutiny. He recoils when institutions hold. He bristles at collective action he cannot bully or exhaust. The NRA. Epstein. Yes. But most of all, he fears opponents who refuse to be intimidated, who stand their ground, meet his stare, and say: I’m not going anywhere. You’re just as tired as I am. Let’s finish this.
Championship rounds are not about dominance. They are about resolve.
American democracy is bruised, winded, and tested, but it is still standing. The question is not whether the fight has been ugly. It has. The question is whether, in these final rounds, enough people are willing to keep their hands up, keep their feet moving, and stay focused until the bell.
This is the hard part that decides everything.
We don’t need a knockout; we just need to beat him up.
This was a good analogy (though ugly to think about with my morning coffee’(
That quality of perseverance, grit, downright stubbornness of the living, shows itself in a variety of situations. People fighting cancer. Survivors of childhood or domestic abuse. A vet, alone in a room on July 4th, just hanging on thru his PTSD beneath the fireworks. Heroism shows up in many ways, and these same survivors have what it takes to stand up to Trump because they recognize him for the evil that has consumed him.
Great analogy, great column. However, I do disagree with the main premise. I believe in my soul, that body blows are not enough; a knockout IS necessary. Trump and MAGA are like a colony of fire ants led by a mad queen. You can try multiple methods to get rid of them, but if you don’t kill the queen, the colony will just move to another spot. Now, in no way am I condoning an assassination or any other violence, only that Trump must be rendered useless and seen that way by his followers for this to be over. The mass protests now are a great start. A blowout win by the Dems, and taking back the House in 2026 would be even better, setting the stage, once again, for a consequential election in 2028. I know it has been said before, in 2020 and 2024, but 2028 is REALLY the last chance this country has to remain a constitutional republic.