I’m tired of winning.

By James J Devine

I’m tired of winning.

I’m tired of the “winning” that looks like a smoking crater where the global economy used to be.

AI’m tired of a Commander-in-Chief who wouldn’t know a strategic victory if it parked itself on the White House lawn and started charging admission.

Most of all, I’m tired of the lies—the bald, gaslighting, reality-defying lies—about a war he started, a war he’s losing, and a defeat he’s desperately trying to rebrand as something else.

Let’s start with the basics.

The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil passes, is closed. Not “contested.” Not “under pressure.” Closed. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy says it’s closed and that any hostile movement will be targeted.

Iran’s security chief, Mohsen Rezaei, called Trump’s claim that the strait is open a “big lie,” noting that traffic has collapsed from over 100 vessels carrying more than 100 million tons of goods to just seven or eight ships carrying Iran’s own essential imports.

That’s not a minor disruption. That’s a tourniquet on the global energy supply.

You never heard of the Bab el-Mandeb, but it is the southern gateway to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

The Houthis—those scrappy, Iran-aligned militants Trump’s war was supposed to neutralize—have just seized the port city of Mokha, putting them within striking distance of controlling the strait entirely .

Before Trump’s unprovoked and illegal war, these waterways were open. Ships moved. Oil flowed. Commerce happened.

Now? The Houthis are consolidating control over one chokepoint while Iran strangles the other.

The economic consequences aren’t theoretical.

They’re the pain at the pump. Brent crude hit $105 a barrel . West Texas Intermediate blasted through $100 . And diesel—the fuel that moves freight, heats homes, and powers the machinery of modern life—hit a record average of over $6 a gallon in the United States for the first time in history . Prices are up roughly $2.30 from a year ago. Inventories are 13% below the five-year average.

Trump’s response to this unfolding catastrophe? A Truth Social post predicting gas prices would drop “below Two Dollars a gallon” once America “WINS the war with Iran”

This is a man watching Rome burn and promising that the ashes will be great for the garden.

The lies are structural. They’re not just about what’s happening; they’re about what happened. Trump started this war—an unprovoked, illegal adventure that has now metastasized into a regional conflagration.

Bear in mind that you are spending your tax dollars to kill people. That’s what war is, but the blood

He promised it would be quick, decisive, and victorious. Instead, Iran is not defeated. Iran is ascendant. Its proxies control the Bab el-Mandeb. Its navy controls the Strait of Hormuz. Its leadership openly mocks the American president’s claims as “big lies” .

The “defeat” Trump refuses to name is not some abstract geopolitical setback. It’s the loss of the ability to keep the world’s most critical waterways open. It’s the collapse of a deterrent posture that took decades to build. It’s an economy teetering under the weight of $100+ oil and $6 diesel. It’s American credibility, shredded.

But the lying continues because the lying is all that’s left. When you can’t win, you redefine victory. When you can’t open the straits, you claim they’re already open. When you can’t lower prices, you promise they’ll drop after a victory that will never come. When you can’t admit defeat, you gaslight the American people into believing that the smell of smoke is the scent of triumph.

I’m tired of winning. I’m tired of the lies. I’m tired of a president who treats the American people like marks in a con game, hoping we’re too distracted to notice that the ships aren’t moving, the prices are skyrocketing, and the war he started is the one he’s losing.

The straits are closed. The economy is reeling. The lies are exhausted. And the only thing left to win is the truth—which is that this was a catastrophic, self-inflicted defeat, and no amount of Truth Social bravado will change that.