Are we there yet? Can we reach consensus on the indisputable fact that our President is a nut job, an unserious egomaniac who gets his jollies playing while many of the people he supposedly serves are eking out an existence and just getting by?

Isn’t it clear now? He’s running for his life, he’s always angry, probably ill, way more stubborn than an ox, and now engaged in a tit-for-tat with Canada, our long-time trading partner and friend. Little Donnie has his boxers in a bunch over Canada’s totally predictable and understandable retaliation for 50% tariffs that are currently set to go into effect in the new year.

Good for Canada! Punch the bully in the mouth and just let the renaming of Lake Ontario roll right off your back. “Lake America” will be a short-lived phenomenon, if it comes to pass, and it’ll be our latest embarrassment. We’ll be the ones who have to live with the childishness and try to ignore it, until a new administration arrives and removes all the golden calves and the spiteful map renderings.

Jeez, Donald.

And he’s not close to being done yet. Every day we move a bit closer to irrelevance. We isolate ourselves a little more. It’s hard to watch.

There was a headline in a well-known publication that asked, “Is RFK, Jr. winning or losing the battle against vaccines?” I guess I’m not clear on the phrasing, or why the question was asked in the first place.

As the query bounced around in my brain, a couple questions popped up in response. First, beyond the mind-numbing reality of his current status as head of HHS, why is RFK, Jr. part of any conversation pertaining to the benefits or dangers of vaccines– or any medical question whatsoever? And second, why is there a war over vaccines at all? Why speak of it in such a way?

I think I understand that any vaccine is going to be unsafe or ill-advised for a certain small percentage of the population, but that, on the balance and according to a majority of those who actually know about such things, they are safe and efficacious.

The fact that this is being spoken of in terms of war is unsettling, to say the least. It’s as if the whole enterprise is the brainchild of cold-hearted pharmaceutical companies who only care about the bottom line, or there is this unfounded fear among MAGA adherents and others that vaccines are the devil, a symbol of wokeness, somehow. It’s irrational to think this way, and yet enough people are making noise over it that we have to waste time talking about it.  

I’ve never understood vaccine mandates to be the intentionally oppressive means of forcing preventative measures on someone. I’ve always understood them as being the reasonable recommendations of those who used to be trusted as having done their due diligence, done their homework, engaged in the trial processes and as a result stand behind the safety and effectiveness of drugs that keep us safe from horrendous, sometimes life-threatening diseases.

In the end, Bobby, Jr., please do the right thing and at least leave the choice of whether or not our kids are vaccinated to parents who do their homework. And let research surrounding these miracles of medicine continue.

Otherwise, just resign and enjoy your days foraging for roadkill.

It’s a bit frightening to think that the Supreme Court of the United States is sympathetic to Donald Trump’s, i.e The Heritage Foundation’s nefarious intentions. It’s a shame his lawyers aren’t as inept as the rest of the half-wits around him.

These jurisprudential whiz kids apparently are presenting a lucid enough argument regarding mail-in balloting that the justices have rewarded Trump with yet another victory.

I assume that the brunt of the argument lies in attempting to curtail voter fraud, which is the cliched and longstanding excuse for all the attempts at keeping Democrats from voting. This is the latest, and just in time to perhaps affect the outcome of upcoming elections in November.

My stomach turns once again, because the argument of fraud has been disproven over and over again. The SC has to know this, but they’ll defend their decision based on the arguments presented, which apparently have been good enough to warrant this closer look and yet another gut-wrenching win for this creepy circus.

Or maybe the court is simply in Trump’s back pocket. Even, somehow, afraid of him?

Every day, it feels like we move a bit closer to disaster of one sort or another.

No one is minding the store.

Most in positions of responsibility and authority are operating out of an abundance of ineptitude, incapable of tending to reality, hired because of their loyalty to a big-mouthed egomaniac and not necessarily because they know anything about their jobs.

We’re constantly dealing with the batshit craziness of it all, aghast at the excuse making, the lying, the administration-wide incompetence, and the blatant, unchecked self-interest.

Most days, the country appears to be running on autopilot, on muscle memory. There are lots of moving parts, after all. But it’s starting to feel like, shortly, various chickens will be coming home to roost—the greed, the short-sightedness, the mismanaged economy, the testosterone-fueled distractions some call military operations, the mystifying refusal to acknowledge that our environment is sick. The racism. The paranoia. It’s all gonna come crashing down.

Maybe that’s why Donald is pushing so hard for his ballroom. He really feels like he needs to take up residence in what’s being built underneath it. Sounds like we should let him. He’ll need a place to hide after the blue wave.

Then maybe nature will take its course, and our fearless leader will follow in the footsteps of one of his heroes, sans Eva. Maybe Natalie will have the good sense not to follow him in there.

Of all the posts I’ve written in the last year or two, a healthy percentage have been ones based on the daily writing prompt. Overall, though, I’d venture that most of the others are somehow related to Donald Trump or his administration.

I’m not fascinated with the guy, or the motley crew that populates his inner circle. I’d say it’s more a fixation, a revulsion thing, more reactive than a function of curiosity or genuine interest.

In the beginning, after the election of 2016, there was a period of disbelief and then a long stretch of WTF. Since November of 2024, it’s been more WTF but also this unshakeable feeling of astonishment, almost stunned disbelief, that so many people were convinced enough to vote him into office a second time. They couldn’t listen to him or look at him and come away thinking, “Nah, not this time.” Instead it was, again, “Yup, give me some of that.”

They bought into the victim schtick, the whole manufactured fear and “dark times in America” ruse, and the “only I can fix it” BS. They apparently believed in him even after he made all the promises and proceeded to keep few of them—other than the ones about immigration and tariffs.

His coarseness and ignorance are selling points, somehow giving him the air of an “everyman,” even as he and his children and in-laws exist in rarified air and grift to their hearts’ content, on our dime. What’s worse is that so many either like Project 2025 and where it is taking us, or they refuse to look closer and learn what this manifesto actually means for the country.

Apologies for letting this guy get in my head, but I feel like this is my contribution to the resistance—constant scrutiny and trying to find the words that plum the depths of my revulsion for such a lying sack of shit and the suck-ups riding his coattails.

Increasingly, Trump seems like a foil, rambling on about grass, plugging Scott’s Miracle-Gro, singing the praises of the fine granite or marble or whatever it is they’re using on the new helipad. Meanwhile, Project 2025 continues to inform the ranks, Iran is a quagmire, construction can resume on the ballroom/bunker, thanks to a stay from the Supreme Court, the cost of living is high, people are getting sick from diseases and maladies that need not enjoy the resurgence they’re currently experiencing.

And who knows what they’re up to regarding the midterm elections? Trump appears not to care about them, but from what various pundits are saying, the people around Trump are a bit more concerned and are wondering why he isn’t.

Maybe he doesn’t care because the fix is in and enough is being done already to sabotage things. Or maybe he sees a blue wave on the horizon and he’s putting all his eggs in the bunker basket, with a plan to barricade himself and direct the attendant civil unrest after he gives word to his goon squads to wreak havoc and sow some chaos.

Or maybe he and Mitch McConnell are planning a play date, if Natalie approves. Who knows?

It pays to be watching him and the inner circle like a hawk.