Yes, Pope Francis was a nightclub bouncer and boxer earlier in life. And he’s still at it, with a higher moral authority in his corner. No wonder betting odds are heavy against his opponents.

Who’s next? GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell. In the ring McConnell is a modern day “Don Quixote,” always chasing impossible dreams. Remember, early in 2008 McConnell vowed to knock Obama out as a one-term president. That dream turned into an impossible nightmare.

Flash forward, the GOP keeps repeating the same old self-defeating strategy. Remember earlier this year? McConnell got 47 GOP senators to send an ill-advised letter to Iran’s Supreme Ayatollah, in hopes of sabotaging Obama’s nuclear arms treaty. Bad idea.

The New York Times screamed: “Iran’s highest leader issued a sharp response Thursday to a letter to the country’s leadership by Republican lawmakers, deriding it as an indication that Washington is disintegrating from within.” And across America, dozens of editorial pages condemned the GOP’s reckless action.

Still the GOP couldn’t see the damage its “oppose everything, propose nothing” strategy caused everyone, creating a loser brand for the GOP, fueling Trump’s fan base to attack the Republican establishment and its candidates, and killing their chances of winning the presidency.

And still ... the GOP doesn’t get it, holds even tighter to their failed strategy

Yes, our modern day “Don Quixote” apparently hasn’t embarrassed his GOP enough, demeaned the U.S. Senate enough, damaged America enough. Wants more. Like the “Don Quixote” of literature, all he knows is tilting windmills, otherwise he can’t see how irrational, how self-destructive his party is behaving.

This time he’s attacking President Obama’s favorite proxy, the wildly popular Pope Francis, who’s backed by an army of billions worldwide. Meanwhile, McConnell must be praying Big Oil will keep bankrolling him in his lost-cause climate war against the pope and the president.

This time it is global warming, a signature issue for both Pope Francis and President Obama, a powerful issue guaranteed to be front and center when the pope visits Congress, the UN, and the presidential debates and elections.

And this time around, everyone knows that the Senate Leader and his GOP colleagues are mere pawns, de facto lobbyists, proxies for a not-so-secret conspiracy of Big Oil billionaires, the Koch Empire, far-right billionaires and the GOP’s conservative climate-science denying allies.

Here’s how Politico put it: “GOP to attack climate pact at home & abroad.” McConnell staffer is running around “informing foreign embassies about GOP plans to oppose Obama’s strategy on global warming.” Sound familiar? Yes, the same old tired strategy.

Yes, right out of the GOP’s perennially losing playbook. You have to feel sorry for them, they seem compelled by a dark force to keep using that failed “Don Quixote” playbook one more time. They will lose again, embarrass themselves one more time. Will they wake up after another loss?

Meanwhile President Obama’s legacy in foreign affairs, an Iran nuclear treaty, climate-change treaties with China, then the UN, universal health care and so much more, all will live on in history brighter than ever, a presidential legacy ironically brightened by the endless wasted opportunities of our modern day windmill-tilting “Don Quixote” who’s leading the GOP-controlled Senate.

Pope warning GOP: Capitalism is the root cause of all problems

When Pope Francis addresses a joint session of Congress next week, look closely at McConnell’s face. Feel pain, sense what’s going on inside his head, his mind’s a dark open-book revealing the collective conscience of the entire Republican Party.

Then listen, because Pope Francis will be attacking everything the GOP stands for — their flawed capitalist ideology, their narcissism, selfishness, their elitism, greed, nihilism. Then watch the pope knock them around the ring, pummeling them with fast and furious body blows, right jabs, left hooks, while the GOP is forced to sit still, listen respectfully, while seething inside.

What’s the pope’s likely line of attack? Remember, Pope Francis is a boxer, street fighter, climate warrior. His engaging smile is deceptive. The guy loves a good fight, he’ll get one, and he’ll fight back harder because he’s passionate about doing what’s morally right in a capitalist world that’s lost its moral compass.

Here are the pope’s likely punches, edited from the Catholic Climate Covenant, from his “Apostolic Exhortation,” from his recent Climate Encyclical, from the London Guardian and other news sources, no-nonsense warnings about of global warming, the catastrophic future ahead for our kids, the damage to our home planet.

Pope Francis’ message is simple, clear, profound: “Safeguard Creation, for we are the custodians of Creation. If we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us.” Let’s hope McConnell gets it this time:

1. America’s capitalist ideology is killing human civilization and Planet Earth

The pope sees a “threat to peace arises from the greedy exploitation of environmental resources. Monopolizing of lands, deforestation, the appropriation of water, inadequate agro-toxics are some of the evils that tear man from the land of his birth. Climate change, the loss of biodiversity and deforestation are already showing their devastating effects in the great cataclysms we witness.”

2. Today capitalists worship a new “Golden Calf,” the god of money

“We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money” ... Francis warns that “trickledown economics is a failed theory” ... the “invisible hand” of capitalism cannot be trusted ... “excessive consumerism is killing our culture, values and ethics” ... and “the conservative ideal of individualism is undermining the common good.”

3. American capitalism lost its moral compass, has no public conscience

“We are experiencing a moment of crisis; we see it in the environment, but mostly we see it in man. The human being is at stake: here is the urgency of human ecology! And the danger is serious because the cause of the problem is not superficial, but profound: it’s not just a matter of economics, but of ethics.”

4. Capitalists are destroying scarce resources for selfish personal gain

“Genesis tells us that God created man and woman entrusting them with the task of filling the earth and subduing it, which does not mean exploiting it, but nurturing and protecting it, caring for it through their work.”

5. Capitalism’s endless pursuit of wealth is destroying the common good

Without a moral code, “it is no longer man who commands, but money. Cash commands. Greed is the motivation ... An economic system centered on the god of money needs to plunder nature to sustain the frenetic rhythm of consumption that is inherent to it.” Instead, the pope calls for a “radical new financial and economic system to avoid human inequality and ecological devastation.”

6. Capitalists are wasting our home planet’s limited natural resources

“This task entrusted to us by God the Creator requires us to grasp the rhythm and logic of Creation. But we are often driven by pride of domination, of possessions, manipulation, of exploitation; we do not care for Creation, we do not respect it.”

7. Capitalism treats humans as disposable tools and mere consumers

“Nurturing and cherishing Creation is a command God gives not only at the beginning of history, but to each of us. It is part of his plan; it means causing the world to grow responsibly, transforming it so that it may be a garden, a habitable place for everyone.” Not just the rich.

8. Capitalism is the root cause of all the world’s problems

Pope Francis warns that capitalism is the “root cause” of all the world’s problems: “As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems,” as environmental damage trickles down hardest on the world’s poor.

Bottom line: Pope Francis is encouraging an anti-capitalist revolution. His sparring partners, GOP climate-science deniers, Big Oil, Koch billionaires and hard-right conservatives better be on alert. Pope Francis is on a mission, inspiring billions to take back their home planet from fossil-fuel capitalists who lost their moral compass, are destroying civilization and the planet.