The Drive to Humiliate Trump, Who is Beyond Humiliation
The drive to fully humiliate Trump is not primarily about policy disagreement or even electoral calculation. It is about status, symbolism, and the permanent rewriting of the narrative of American power in the Middle East. Every misstep, every escalation that fails to deliver a clean victory, every image of American ships or bases under threat becomes another frame in a story that paints the United States as overstretched, incoherent, and ultimately beatable. In that environment, the Strait of Hormuz has become the single most dangerous piece of real estate on the planet, not because oil still moves through it in the same volumes as decades ago, but because it is the place where humiliation and catastrophe can be fused most efficiently.
Hormuz is a chokepoint by geography and by psychology. A handful of well-placed missiles, mines, or swarming boats can turn the world's most important energy corridor into a high-stakes theatre overnight. The side that can force the United States into a choice between accepting disruption or launching a major military response holds the initiative. Once that dynamic is locked in, every American decision is framed as either weakness or warmongering. There is no graceful middle path left. Continuing to treat Hormuz as a vital interest that must be defended at all costs simply hands opponents a permanent lever for escalation and narrative control.
Short of total war, the kind that would require sustained campaigning against Iranian military infrastructure, risk regional conflagration, and demand resources and political capital that are already strained, the only coherent exit is deliberate disengagement from the idea that the United States must keep the strait open by force. That does not mean abandoning allies or pretending energy markets do not matter. It means accepting that the cost of guaranteeing free passage has risen beyond the value of the guarantee itself. Markets adapt. Alternative routes, strategic reserves, and diversified supply already exist. What does not adapt easily is a superpower trapped in a theatre where every incident is designed to produce either American blood or American embarrassment.
Abandoning the posture of permanent Hormuz guardian would remove the most convenient stage on which adversaries can stage the next humiliation. It would force those who want to bloody the United States to choose harder, more costly targets. It would also force a clearer conversation at home about what American power is actually for in the coming decades. The alternative is to remain locked in a cycle where every administration inherits the same vulnerable commitment and every opponent knows exactly where to press.
The logic is cold but straightforward. As long as the United States treats Hormuz as non-negotiable, it remains the perfect instrument for those who want to demonstrate American limits. The only way out short of a war no one can fully control, is to stop treating the strait as a vital artery that must be held at any price. Walk away from the posture, accept the temporary disruption, and deny the theatre its favourite script. Everything else is just waiting for the next round of humiliation or the slide into something far larger.
https://michaeltsnyder.substack.com/p/they-want-to-fully-humiliate-trump
