That headline, while meant to be amusing, is contemplating a rather broad definition of the historical political metaphor. The term "lame duck" actually predates its use in politics (according to Wikipedia), and was first used in a political sense in America in 1863. Political cartoons depicting lame ducks date back over a century. Used in the traditional sense, the term refers to the period between when politicians lose their bid for re-election and when the new Congress and/or president is sworn into office. The congressional session after the November elections but before the new Congress is sworn in has long been known as the "lame-duck Congress."

But the term can also be used to describe a politician who is barred from even running for re-election by term limits. In this case, the timing of when the lame-duck period begins is a lot looser. Some second-term presidents are labelled lame ducks at the very start of their second term, for instance, others get the label applied after the midterm congressional elections take place, and some skate all the way to the final few months of their administration (the traditional congressional lame-duck period) before having the term used about them.

So when will Donald Trump become a lame duck? That is the big question, and the answer might well be seen (later on, looking back) as where the political landscape stands right now. Because the most defining feature of a lame duck in the Oval Office is that he starts losing his political leverage -- especially over the members of his own party. They all start thinking about their own future political prospects more than anything else. Which can cause defections -- members of Congress who decide to break with their own party's leader (the sitting president) by starting to stake out their own positions, through sheer political self-preservation. If a president is unpopular and has an unpopular agenda, then it makes more sense for other politicians of his party to try to appeal to voters by taking positions that aren't so unpopular -- which can improve their chances for getting re-elected.

In the past few weeks, we're starting to see some noticeable cracks in the Republicans' servile toadying and slavish obeisance to everything Trump demands. A House candidate in Florida broke with Trump on the harshness of his immigration policy. Republican Senate candidates in two states called for Trump to immediately end his war of choice with Iran. More Republicans are finding the courage to vote for resolutions to end the war, every time they come up for a vote in Congress. Many Republican candidates (at all levels) are very quietly pulling all references to and photos of Donald Trump from their campaign websites. And one Republican senator just called for a Senate investigation into the blatantly corrupt "gift" of a wedding party paid for by a Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin, which was given to the son of the sitting U.S. president.

Add to this the fact that Vice President JD Vance is getting snubbed by both GOP politicians and the voters. Vance went to Iowa this week to give a speech in support of Republicans running there. The GOP candidate in the Senate race didn't show up. Barely 100 people turned out for the speech. Vance also recently gave a speech in North Carolina, where the audience was almost as small (and was dwarfed by the size of the venue they had booked for the speech). This is lame-duckery by proxy, admittedly, but it does show candidates who are distancing themselves from the White House in close races.

As I said, this is not a flood... not yet. The dam hasn't quite burst. But these things are all cracks in that dam, and they are trickling water. The cracks could become larger, the closer we get to the midterm elections (a little under six weeks from now). More defections might happen on these issues or others. Or not. Most Republican politicians are still pretty terrified at the wrath of Donald Trump, so maybe there won't be any more of them (or not many). Maybe Trump's true lame-duck period won't begin until either after the midterms or even later in his second term.

After all, Trump has already had some notable defections in his second term. They pale in comparison to the number of times Republicans have just gone along with Trump out of political cowardice, but some of them have been notable. The vote to force the release of the Epstein files was probably the biggest defection Trump faced (or at least the most newsworthy), but there have been others as well. Trump keeps coming up with ideas for laws he'd like to see passed, but they never seem to be able to get enough votes -- sometimes even in the Republican House (which doesn't have the filibuster problem). Trump is embroiled in dozens of court cases that could be made moot if Congress simply authorized him to do certain things (such as, to cite just one recent instance, renaming the Kennedy Center). But these measures never seem to have enough GOP support to actually pass.

Which brings up another interesting point about lame ducks: if the Democrats win big in the midterms, what is the lame-duck GOP Congress going to do before January? Trump and all the other Republicans will know full well that this will be the last period that Trump will be able to jam bills through with GOP control of both chambers, so there may be a frenzy of such measures before the end of the year. Who knows what Trump will demand of the lame GOP ducks before they exit the political stage?

Whatever happens in the final months of the year, it is going to become more and more apparent that Donald Trump's influence over the Republican Party is going to wane. If Democrats do take control of one or both of the chambers of Congress in the midterms, then the Republicans are going to become a lot less politically powerful in general. The GOP is going to start seriously considering what a post-Trump Republican Party should look like and stand for -- which makes Trump's voice even more irrelevant. The campaign for who will replace Trump as the next GOP presidential nominee will begin in earnest as well.

The question now is how many Republicans in Congress are going to desert the sinking Trump ship before the midterm elections. The panic within the party over Trump's record-low approval ratings and his war of choice that is vastly unpopular with the public (due to the price everyone is now paying at the pump for Trump's misadventure) is only going to get worse, the closer we get to Election Day. More and more Republicans might make the decision that they'll have a better chance of getting voters' support by opposing Trump rather than going along with all his sometimes-bizarre ideas. If the trickle does turn into any sort of flood -- if that dam really does burst -- then we will look back at this point in time to identify when Trump truly did become a lame duck.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant