Trump’s Possible Pyrrhic Victory

While considering the possible topics that I could take up for this blog topic, I turned to current events for a an example of a pyrrhic victory, and found that it could possibly apply to something as recent as our presidential elections. I’ve noticed through social media that people have turned to an interesting way of coping with the election results, and that is through hoping Donald Trump has just experienced a Pyrrhic victory, which is when someone wins a battle, but the cost of winning is so large that the victory ends up not being worth it in the end. In other words, they are hoping that he has realized or soon will come to realize that being president is simply not worth it anymore.

One of the places that this speculation has originated is from the first meeting between President Obama and the President Elect. The awkward attitude that Trump exuded after the meeting caused people to wonder if what they were seeing was the face of a man, “with no political experience learning all the work that the presidency entails”. One particular post on tumblr compares Trump’s expectations with the meeting to the first day of law school, an apt comparison considering that Obama went to law school himself. The way this user interprets Trump’s awkwardness is by explaining that when he went into this meeting he was expecting “syllabus day”, but when it started, Obama treated it like the first day of law school, meaning that he was expecting the most out of Trump from the beginning, rather than giving him a day to simply relax and take it all in. By treating Trump as an equal he would be able to realize how unprepared he is for this job and therefore make him wonder if in the end, all of this would be worth the power he sought after.

Personally, I can see how this could be the case. Not only is Trump being thrust into a job that he has no experience in, but a spotlight has also been put on him as a result of this election, which has resulted in trouble for him. For example, while he was running for the presidency, Trump has come under fire for past actions including rape accusations, a university scam, housing discrimination, his bankruptcies, and many more situations. All of these topics which have been brought up because of people wanting to know if he truly is the right fit to be the President. Considering he was already doing well in terms of money and power, I can see how the Presidency might start looking less attractive the more he has to learn about the less-than-glamorous aspects of it.

However, it is worth noting that all of this is simply speculation, and other people’s interpretation of Trump’s recent mannerisms rather than something that is absolutely confirmed It is not the truth of this speculation that I find interesting. Rather, I find that the interesting part of this is that many people who did not support Trump seem to be using this as some sort of coping mechanism. In a situation where one is aware that they have lost overall, they have two options to turn to for comfort. The first option is looking for the silver lining in the situation, and the second would be what is being seen here. By making the victory into a Pyrrhic victory, those who have “lost” are able to deal with the situation by at least knowing that the victor does not get satisfaction out of their win and bringing it as close to a loss as possible. This also brings hope that a situation like this would not arise again, meaning that people are able to hope that through a Pyrrhic victory those who are rooting for Trump realize that it is and as a result, do not put their faith in people like Trump again.