In baseball there is a rare but beautiful pitch known as the knuckleball. It is difficult to learn and takes a lifetime to perfect. It glides through the air without spin and zigzags from side to side before reaching the plate. Even the best knuckleball pitchers struggle to throw it effectively. Most catchers simply can’t react fast enough to the ball’s late movements to keep it in their mitts. Hall of Fame hitters look silly as they swing two feet away from a ball traveling slowly around their bats. When a knuckleball pitcher is on his game, batters never look more frustrated.
President Trump might just be the greatest knuckleballer of all time. In both domestic and foreign policy, he throws these pitches whose in-air movements seem to betray the laws of physics. His adversaries stand at the plate with big smiles and expect to launch Trump’s slow tosses over the fence. His putative allies trying to catch the ball behind home plate don’t like what they see and keep calling for a different pitch. But the president just grins and says, Now watch: I’m going to throw this thing very slowly, and that guy up there will fall over trying to hit it. It’ll be fabulous. And that’s exactly what happens.
As I write this, there is a tenuous ceasefire between Iran and Israel after two weeks of fighting. Trump is already trademarking it “The 12 Day War.” Will peace prevail? We will see. But did anybody expect the possibility? Not really.
The president’s announcement of an end to the war came only two days after he sent American pilots on a daring mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear facilities. That operation, codenamed Midnight Hammer, included multiple head fakes. While President Trump indicated that he might take two weeks before hitting Iran, decoy B-2s headed West to Guam. With the eyes of the world looking in the wrong direction, stealth bombers took off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri for an 18-hour journey into hostile territory. The pitch came in slow and steady and struck Iran’s nuclear capabilities before anyone even knew the ball was in the catcher’s mitt.
The reaction to Trump’s nuclear strikeout was as frantic as a hitter slamming his bat on the ground after swinging at a ball bouncing several feet before the plate. Those who have argued against any new U.S.-led wars in the Middle East immediately feared a protracted conflict. Those who have argued for regime change in Iran hoped that U.S. boots on the ground would soon follow. Democrats who had been calling Trump a “chicken” for going easy on Iran flipped positions, condemned the attack, and started calling for his impeachment. All the while, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, was working behind the scenes to find a peaceful solution.
The ball zigzags through the air, and nobody is sure where it will land. Three paragraphs after noting that there is a “tenuous ceasefire,” I must add that Iran and Israel are now exchanging fire, and President Trump is rhetorically spanking both countries. Because his administration is working desperately for Middle East peace, the same pundits who applauded his Iran attack yesterday are mad today. Similarly, those who excoriated the attack as “unconstitutional” yesterday are today having second thoughts. As witty catcher Bob Uecker once said, “the way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and pick it up.” Right now Trump’s knuckleball in the Middle East is still rolling.
One of the crazy things about a knuckleball pitcher is that the effectiveness of the pitch can ebb and flow. I loved watching Tim Wakefield throw for the Boston Red Sox. He could make the Bronx Bombers look like Little Leaguers still hitting from a tee. But sometimes he’d throw two or three awful innings and give up a bunch of runs. Most managers pull their pitchers when that happens; it takes a manager with nerves of steel to stick with a knuckleballer handing out home runs. Even when Ol’ Wake was struggling, though, he could often miraculously turn things around and pitch a lights-out complete game. When using a knuckleballer to strike out the side, patience is the key.
The reactions of Russia and China have been interesting to watch. In the past, Russia has positioned assets near Iran to dissuade Western attacks. This time around, it is preoccupied with war in Ukraine. Although former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev had harsh words for President Trump after the U.S. destroyed Iran’s nuclear sites, President Putin has remained relatively quiet. Similarly, communist China has said and done little in response to the attack. When you consider that Putin is busy seeking Trump’s assistance in bringing the European war to an end and that China is heavily reliant upon Iranian oil, it becomes clear that this was an ideal time to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat. Sometimes a knuckleballer gets batters so mixed up that they just give up.
Meanwhile, President Trump’s adversaries here at home can’t stop whiffing on his pitches, either. Democrats said that food and fuel prices would continue to rise; instead, both have steadily declined. Democrats said that the president’s use of tariffs to recalibrate global trade would increase inflation; instead, inflation is lower than it has been since Trump’s first term. Democrats said that Americans would reject President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration; instead, the public overwhelmingly backs the president’s actions.
Think of some of the crazy pitches that Trump has used to strike out the Democrat party. He has Democrats defending Hamas baby-killers, Iranian “Death to America” terrorists, violent illegal aliens, child castration, and men beating up women in competitive sports. The president keeps telling his catcher, Watch: I’ll get them to argue against sending foreign murderers and rapists back to their own countries. The umpire is listening and murmuring, What kind of moron would swing at that? And Trump just smiles and whispers behind his glove, The kind of morons who vote for Hillary, Kamala, and Dementia Joe, that’s who! Trump releases the ball, and while it moves in midair, the Democrats call him vulgar names. Dim-Dems hack at it from all directions but strike out as the ball travels slowly across the plate.
As funny as it is to see Democrats swinging ferociously and falling to the ground with every Trump pitch, it is also pretty amusing to see all the players supposedly on his team freaking out from the dugout. The neocons are screaming for endless war. The so-called “free traders” are busy disparaging tariffs. The multinational conglomerates hope that they’ll still get to use slave labor overseas. The Establishment Old Guard are tired of Trump’s “culture war” at home and want to get back to the business of making money from real war in Ukraine. Batboy Volodymyr Zelensky thinks it’s time to put in a new pitcher. Why can’t he just pitch like a normal Republican? the benchwarmers keep asking one another. Nobody’s seen a Republican knuckleballer on the mound before.
One thing that separates Trump from most knuckleballers, though, is that he occasionally uses other pitches. By eliminating USAID and other government slush funds for Democrats, he hurls curveballs that keep the opposition off-balance. By eliminating federal grants for universities that coddle terrorists and discriminate against female athletes, he throws a nasty cutter that gets Democrats chasing pitches outside the strike zone. And sometimes, when his adversaries are least expecting it, he throws a blazing heater high and tight.
President Trump is a dangerous knuckleballer because he keeps everyone guessing. His unpredictability confounds adversaries. And every once in a while, he throws a Massive Ordnance Penetrator right down the middle for a strike.
Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.