Just as Captain Ahab’s obsession with Moby Dick led to his own destruction, so too may President Trump’s ongoing obsession with the 2020 election hurt him, the GOP, and the country as well. President Trump’s best course of action is to end his fixation on 2020 and focus on 2026. He can best help himself, his party, and—most importantly—the country with constructive policies to promote affordability and wind down the war in Iran.
Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, or the Whale, tells the story of Captain Ahab’s quest to kill the title whale because it had once bitten off Ahab’s leg. But Ahab’s obsession leads not to the destruction of Moby-Dick, but to that of Ahab himself, as well as of his ship, the Pequod, and almost his entire crew, other than Ishmael. Whatever other points Melville wanted to make, he makes clear that the worst enemy of one who is obsessed with anything is—himself.
The same is true of Donald Trump, whose own Great White Whale is proof that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulently conducted and that the White House was stolen from him. Like Captain Ahab he is obsessed. And unless he changes course, he may, like Captain Ahab, self-destruct as well. And just as Captain Ahab took his ship and most of his crew with him, Trump risks losses to the GOP and postponement of policies more beneficial to the country.
As I’ve written on several previous occasions, the 2026 elections promise to cause major problems for Trump since it is likely the Democrats will win the House and possibly the Senate as well. He and the GOP may be washed over by a Big Blue Wave fueled by voter dissatisfaction with ICE detentions, inflation, affordability, an unpopular and seemingly unwinnable war in Iran, thereby producing a Democratic House and possibly a Democratic Senate too. A Democratic House will once again impeach Trump. A Democratic Senate won’t necessarily remove Trump from office, but it will block his executive and judicial appointments as well as his legislative proposals. In essence, come January 3 of 2027, when the new Congress first meets, President Trump will become the lamest of lame ducks.
So what’s motivating Trump? He may honestly believe there was enough election fraud in the 2020 presidential election to have swung the outcome from himself to Biden, although not even the conservative Heritage Foundation could find evidence to that effect—it found only a few hundred instances of illegal voting out of millions of votes cast.
Trump may also want to sow enough doubt about the 2020 election outcome to raise questions about the upcoming 2026 results as well. In other words, he may want to lay the groundwork for more effectively challenging the 2026 congressional election results.
But Trump’s ongoing attempts to undermine the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election will help the Democrats more than the Republicans. Indeed, they already have, as the outcome of the 2021 special Senate elections in Georgia showed. Trump’s relentless attacks on Georgia’s Republican officials—especially its governor and its secretary of state—for failing to “find” enough votes to carry the state for Trump rather than Biden seemed to have suppressed Republican voter turnout in the January 2021 special Senate elections, thereby allowing the Democrats to defeat both of the Republican incumbents seeking re-election. As Trump continues to attack the election outcomes in Georgia and other states, he runs the real possibility of so discrediting the electoral process as to further discourage voter—especially Republican voter—turnout, much to the advantage of the Democrats.
So what should be done?
For Democrats, the answer is simple: Nothing. President Woodrow Wilson (a Democrat) once said you should never try to kill a man while he’s in the process of committing suicide. The best course for Democrats to follow is to allow Trump to continue to discredit the election process and thereby discourage GOP turnout this fall, while Democratic anger over ICE shootings, inflation, and the war will propel Democratic voters to the polls anyway. Republicans, discouraged by the electoral process and lacking Trump’s name on the ballot to otherwise motivate them, will turn out in smaller numbers. And Democrats who vote will easily defeat Republicans who don’t.
For Republicans, successful redistricting plus the growing influence of Democratic Socialism in the Democratic Party may lessen Democratic triumphs this fall. But the best possible course for Trump is to shift his focus from 2020 to 2026. To that end, he should:
- Limit ICE activities to collecting illegal aliens from state and local law enforcement agencies. After all, while voters certainly approve of arresting illegal/undocumented immigrants who may have committed crimes, they don’t approve of arresting those who, while here illegally, are nonetheless working and otherwise obeying the law now that they’re here;
- End tariffs—taxes on imports—and thereby lower the cost of imports for sale in America;
- Open the Strait of Hormuz—possibly with our Navy in accordance with a congressional resolution, and thereby increase the flow of oil and decrease its cost.
Whether Trump can be cured of his fixation is an altogether different matter. In my favorite part of Moby-Dick, Captain Ahab is described as having a lucid moment in which he questions his obsession with finding and killing the Great White Whale and contemplates abandoning his quest and sailing home to his wife and son. Unfortunately for him, his obsession overrides his lucidity and he continues his quest to his ultimate doom. Trump, too, if he refuses to abandon his own obsession, runs the risk of experiencing the same fate Captain Ahab finally brought on himself.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville since 1987 and taught politics and government at Tarleton for 36 years, retiring in 2023. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990-2024). He was Mayor pro-tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Stephenville Economic Development Authority since 2018, and as chair of the Erath County Appraisal District’s Appraisal Review Board since 2015. He is also a member of the Stephenville Rotary Club, the Board of Vestry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and the Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts’ Pecan Valley District. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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