No Words

 

                Image created using AI

The English language is plentiful and rich. For centuries, its depth and breadth of words have inspired poets and novelists, academics and orators, providing much of the world’s most enduring literature. It’s a living thing, too; adding to its lexicon to meet the needs of passing time. And yet... And yet it harbors a frustrating lacuna: English hasn’t the words to accurately describe Donald Trump or the ruination he inflicts upon everything he gropes. We need new terminology, neologisms able to encompass it all.

Without resorting to pallid cliché, how can we describe a psychopathic, jealous, retaliatory egomaniac who looks at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, an institution named for a martyred and revered president, that celebrates the boundless spectrum of American art, and besmirches it with his undeserving moniker? Creepy? Repugnant? Sure. Abominable, nauseating, loathsome, sick? All of those. Overindulged toddler? Absolutely. A deeply damaged, resentful man who surrounds himself with greedy unethicants willing, for personal power, to funnel unearned accolades that, growing up, he neither received nor deserved? That, too, if a bit too clunkersome. Our language is inadequate to the demand. I’ve neo-ed a few logisms, but when it comes to a proper description of Trump, words fail. To employ a pallid cliché.

When I think of what he’s done to the Kennedy Center, I seethe and I mourn. I want to believe it can’t be happening; that his punitory nihilism, his toxic concatenation of arrogance, vengeance, psychopathy, malignant narcissism, jealousy, and fragility would have been arrested before reaching the steps. JFK was everything Trump will never be. He knows, and hates him for it.

I feel the same about what he’s doing to the White House, whose architectural perfection, its picturesque symmetry were meant to instill pride in every American, honoring not the men (and, someday, women) within but the nation it represents. What an unholy, pretentious atrocity he’s made of it. How tastelessly gross; what desecration of beauty that would have been embarrassing for any decent person even to have imagined, much less actuated.

“At the strong request of the military,” Trump lied, he plans to turn that vulgar, grotesquely outsized, self-celebratory, dictator-mimicking arch into a ridiculously unneeded platform for snipers and drones. To shoot at whom? To protect which place from what threat? Sure, Penile Pete might have yessirred Trump’s disingenuous justification. Maybe, absent all the principled ones he fired, a couple of subservient generals, too. In what way do we need that overbearing monstrosity overshadowing the hallowed resting place of America’s fallen heroes? Only in Trump’s disassembled mind.

Arlington Cemetery is reverentially quiet. Whispers tell its stories. Trump’s erection, shouting “Me, me, me,” would, as intended, drown out the hushed voices of those who deserve honor in ways he never will. For that, he resents them as he does all decent and admired people.

So we must assemble fitting combinations of words, like “sick, disgusting, pathetic, destructive, horrible, narcissistic, and catastrophic,” creating not-too-unwieldy ones to describe the shamelessly unrestrained monster among us. Trumpzilla? Too lazy. How about these: Sickastrophic. Disasickulous. Catastrothetic. Pathesicktrophic. Disgustorribathetic. Pathesisstructive. Or maybe none. Probably the original premise was right: there’s no way to adequately describe the apocalyptic horribleness of Trump, then and now. Even following a Blue Wave November, there's more to come.

We don’t have to wait that long. Trump’s “most transparent, free speech protecting administration” has, yet again, wiped its ... feet on our Constitution. Banning major news organizations from the White House, an act he actually referred to as “the ban on the free press,” merely because he doesn’t like their coverage of him, is a clear violation of the First Amendment. We’ve known since the first time he used the term, “fake news” means journalism that replaces right-wing propaganda and disinformation with accuracy and, when deserved, criticism. It’s no surprise that Congressional Rs pretzelled themselves into defending it. Trump was banned from Twitter, spouted Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo), deliberately and stupidly conflating the action of a private company with that of the government. Others were just as bad. 

A free press, allowing even Fox, et ilk, is fundamental to democracy. But Trumpism rejects everything about democracy, like free speech, equal access to voting for all citizens, and competent, truthful leadership. The opposite of what’s currently emanating like greenhouse gases from the other Washington. It’s consticraponic.

If Democrats retake Congress, which, except for the unaccountable millions of dark dollars buying dishonest attack ads everywhere, ought to be certain, Trump won’t have his inhumane domestic agenda to sign into law anymore. So he’ll likely focus on his impulsive, egocentric, incoherent foreign “policy.” Which means more instability, death, and destruction in the Middle East, more distrust and withdrawal by our once-and-former allies, economic uncertainty, and higher prices due to ill-conceived tariffs and stemmed flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea. In his bragging, bullying, and embarrassing speech at the UN this week, he promised it. 

Fradulunhingecreepathetoxidiomendadespoticorruptomaniacal.

Donnie Does Dallas

 

                     AI-generated image

Not long ago we agreed: Trump’s Reflecting Pool calamity was the ultimate metaphor for his “presidency.” It had it all: incompetence, cronyism, arrogance, lying, blame-avoiding, scapegoating. Now, just as it was fading from public awareness, comes the admission by his hand-picked, underqualified, overpaid purveyors of poolwater pulchritude that the failure of the coating in Trump-picked blue was entirely on them. No vandalism. Just tragic inexperience and unskilled workmanship, for which they took full responsibility. (All true.) Trump retracted his confabulation of boxcutters and razor blades, and apologized to the innocents he’d had arrested. And for lying. Offered his own money as restitution. (All false.)

But the Reflecting reflection was, applying the term Trump recently used to describe his disastrous Iran war, “small potatoes.” Last week’s Desperation in Dallas, to be known as Trumpapaloser, became the new standard, the sine qua non of metaphor. It had all the aforementioned characteristics, plus Trumpism’s trademark worshipful idolatry.

From his pulpit, Trump announced the arena was “filled to the rafters,” even as cameras showed thousands of empty seats in the upper tier. Had the ensorcelled audience turned their collective heads to see, which they didn’t because they’re believers, they’d have convinced themselves they saw it, too. He went on to prevaricate that his “convention” garnered higher TV ratings than the NFL season opener, featuring our Seahawks. Since the NFL hadn’t yet released that information, it was a pre-refuted lie. Later, data showed that his doggerel and puny show had around two million viewers, while the game garnered over twenty-five million. Whether Trump was hallucinating or lying is immaterial. Nothing he says can be believed, not a single word; yet he remains in office.

Then, with no gob left unsmacked, there came the most outrageous, reality-disconnected agglutination of words ever uttered by a Cabinet member and, likely, by any human not in a chemically-induced coma. Referring to Trump, Junior Arfkay, manager of our national institutions of health, said this: "I discovered a self-effacing man of superior intelligence, of empathy and compassion, with an encyclopedic grasp of the issues in molecular detail. And most of all … cared about transparency in government and free speech." With the possible exception of “an” and “of,” there’s not a word in that declaration that’s within a light-year of truth. It’s an aggregation of antonyms without precedent. It was like a realtor trying to sell you a house engulfed by fire, telling you it’s move-in ready.

Trump’s lies are pathological. Vance’s and those of every other Cabinet member are intentional. In Dallas, Vance out-disgusted himself. But Arfkay’s lies are so outrageous that his brainworm must have dined on the parts that kept it connected to reality; history’s most premonitory meal since The Last Supper. Trump incabinetted nothing but lying incompetents. Because democracy requires better, we are well and truly screwed.

Before addressing Trump’s even more ridiculous effluent in Dallas, let’s review the words of 18 United States Code section 597: “Whoever makes or offers to make any expenditure to any person either to vote or withhold his vote or to vote for or against any candidate, and whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure ... shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than 2 years ...” Thus, we understand that besides being economically disastrous and stupidly impossible, Trump’s promise to lavish $5000 on every adult American if Rs retain control of Congress is clearly illegal. Were he to do it, he and everyone who accepted the bribe would be subject to imprisonment.

$1.3 trillion is what it would cost, so J.D. Vance, dutifully surrendering dignity as required of every Trumpsman, said it’d be covered by the trillions Trump’s tariffs are bringing in, paying down the national debt, even as the debt just passed $40 trillion. That there’s some mathematical magic. But when has breaking US law ever been an impediment to Trump? It’s bribery, impure and simple-minded. Not to worry, though: The DOJ’s Todd Blanche is our chief law enforcer.

Trump added the proviso that the money must be spent in the US. Brilliant! Cash only, one supposes, each bill embedded with RFID, for tracking. Were it not so dangerous to have such a demented and dishonest “president” it’d be hilarious. Demanding a pledge of allegiance to the self-described “greatest president in the history of the United States,” though, telling them to “cheat like hell” when they vote, and that if they don’t vote they’ll “go to hell”? Not so hilarious.

But threats and bribes are all Trump has, now that the Supreme Court, excepting the tendentious twosome, shut down his attempt to stamp out mail-in voting; an idea, he told Sean Hannity, he got from Vladimir Putin, who knows all about fair elections, which he wins by ninety percent to ten. If Democrats retake Congress, Trump will scream fraud, and Holy Mike Johnson, after discussing it with God, will refuse to seat the newly elected. Nevertheless, until we can’t, let’s savor the SCOTUS ruling and keep hope alive.

The Lunatic In Charge

 

Donald J. Trump, “president” of the United States, has lost what was left of his mind. Last weekend, it exited for good. Gone. Gone like hope for America and the world if he and Republicans remain in control.

This isn’t hyperbole. It’s not TDS. It’s a clear-eyed warning, obvious to sentient humans everywhere. Those who still support him will never see it, but Trump, as he devolves into incoherence, is placing every one of us in grave danger. Witness his latest round of insane postings on his vanity media, Truthless Sociopath (I might have misspelled it).

In one weekend, he put up over sixty truly bizarre, AI-generated images and indecipherable rants. One depicted him firing from space, blowing up the Earth. Another was a map of North and Central America, Greenland, and Iceland painted with the American flag, causing world leaders to pledge support for those islands. One showed the moon, captioned “The Moon is Ours.” Still another changed New Mexico to New America. Next, he was marching through fire with an army of giant robots. There were many more, equally nuts. 

MAGAs might welcome it as “sticking it to the libs.” Congressional Rs might pass it off as “Trump being Trump, ha-ha.” But it’s far from funny. It’s as serious as the stroke that turned John Fetterman into a Fox “news” bot and the possible one that explains Trump’s often-drooping face. Serious as his imbecilic, mismanaged war on Iran, his catering to adversaries while disparaging allies, his backfiring tariffs.

Our country is “led” by a man with a degenerating mind, empowered to order nuclear attacks anywhere he chooses. Seeing his life of privilege and uncontested criminality coming to account, embittered and vengeful, who can say he wouldn’t? With a Secretary of Defense almost equally dislocated, a pretend tough-guy who fired every General and Admiral with the integrity to refuse, replacing them with obedient inferiors, he’s removed the resistance. Those brainless tariff wars are already nuking world economies. Why not for real?

As Trump’s authoritarian incompetence has split and damaged America, so is it dividing and threatening Europe. By popular vote, an undisguisedly fascist party just overtook a part of Germany. Elon Musk, himself proudly fascist and back in with Trump, praised their victory. Joining the goose-steps heard round the world, the Department of Homeland (In)security’s General Counsel is targeting federal judges who’ve defied MAGA actions, posting their names and contact info on social media, leading, predictably, to death threats. Everywhere you look, Trump’s madness is afoot. 

The fascist playbook is written in blood, followed, drip by drip, by Trump and his inexcusable Cabinet. It receives implicit approval by our feck-free Republican Congress, and has been adopted by MAGAs. Sure, they’re brainwashed by Fox “news” and other far-right media. But it’s no excuse. They know what they’re seeing and like it.

Rewriting history, burying truths, like slavery; turning national treasures into propaganda palaces, defacing them with Trump’s likeness and tastelessness. I saw it when I travelled the Soviet Union in the Sixties.

Forcing out Lonnie Bunch, director of the Smithsonian Institution, grand archive of America and Americana (it displays Julia Child’s kitchen and Portland’s Sandy Boulevard!), preserver of the breadth and depth of our history and achievements. Attacking educational institutions and scientists like Anthony Fauci. And science itself. All part of the playbook, which differs little from Project 2025.

Controlling the press, menacing those still committed to a well-informed electorate, as democracy demands. The head of the FCC bullies outlets that publish polls Trump doesn’t like. Planting pliant loyalists in the judiciary, cowing legislators into “investigating” political opponents. And scapegoats, always scapegoats, currently a toss-up between trans Americans and imaginary communists.

Chapter One, of course, is “the big lie.” Trump has been lying about a stolen election since before the 2020 votes were counted. Echoed by elected Republicans (Elected? How did that happen?), facilitated by the Heritage Foundation’s hand-picked Court Supremacists, he’s using it to justify rigging elections for real. Chapter Two is ignoring rulings and laws they don’t like, threatening – and jailing – free-speeching protestors. And, in Trump’s America, infected by his psychopathy, getting away with it.

His handlers know the stakes. If Democrats retake Congress, the party, both literal and figurative, will be over. Corruption polluting the White House will be addressed. Impeachments will, hopefully, happen and, given Trump’s precipitous unpopularity, a few Rs might rediscover patriotic integrity and vote for removal. Starting, though, not with Trump but with Hegseth and Patel, both of whom have demoralized and damaged their respective departments, exposing America to real danger.

It’s unsurprising that Trump, being Trump, nominated such obedient incompetents, but it’s to the forever shame of Republican Senators who, knowing better but cowardly, abandoned America and ushered them in. Removing Trump while those two remain wouldn’t end the madness. First them, then Trump. A few more of his deranged posts, and maybe the (presumably) remaining true conservative voters will find it in themselves to acknowledge the obvious and do what’s right. It’s a definitional national emergency.

Water Over The Bridge

 

Michelle Obama told us, “I've seen firsthand that being president doesn't change who you are. It reveals who you are.” It was true of her husband: intelligent, thoughtful, well-informed, empathetic. And humorous. As people living in Queens knew all too well when Trump was there, he was dishonest, superficial, nasty, racist, and narcissistic. As “president,” those disqualifying characteristics have intensified a thousandfold.

The quote applies also to Trumpists. It’s clear that people who see him as God-given and God-like didn’t become that oblivious when Trump descended that golden escalator, or as he has continued his bottomless descent ever since. The desire to submit blindly to a demagogue has to have been there all along. They may not have known it; they can’t recognize it, but there it is.

I torture myself occasionally by watching video interviews of MAGAs at Trump rallies. It’s mentally harmful and physically painful. Same with observing the weak-kneed people in charge of Google, who, while Trump’s idiotic edict was still echoing in the Offal Office, instantly changed the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America. As I write this, Apple Maps hasn’t, but they just hired a new CEO. We’ll see.

Because Trump and his enablers are vengeful people, businesses that cave to him have something to lose, and not just their integrity. Trump’s “presidency” has revealed their cowardice and greed. But how to explain the evident submission of our conservative Supreme Court Justices, with their lifetime appointments? Their claim to be Constitutional originalists and literalists is as dishonest as Trump and his Cabinet-squatters. Their proclamations that money is speech and corporations are people were created out of vapor. But allowing Trump’s illegal attempts to ban mail-in ballots is inexplicable, blatant disregard for the original, literal words of Article 1, Section 4, Clause 1 of the Constitution, which says:

"The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing [sic] Senators."

Each state. Altered by Congress. Nothing, expressed or implied, gives that power to a president. We can’t know what the Submissive Six thought when they reread the Constitution, but what they said was, “We don’t care and there’s nothing you can do about it.” I recall incessant right-wing screaming about executive orders when issued by Presidents Obama and Biden. Trump’s are met with the silence of the lame.

His renaming water is mostly laughable and embarrassing and, hopefully, like Trump’s name and images everywhere in D.C., will disappear on January 20, 2029. If polluting the capital that way is a presidential right, any could have done the same, but none have been so malignantly narcissistic. Same with Trump’s bullying of corporate entities. None sicced the FCC on media whose personalities and content they didn’t like, nor did any prior presidents appoint such unqualified but worshipful people to run executive branch agencies.

Trump isn’t bright, is getting dimmer, and he’s all but illiterate. But he recognized something that was there all along, but which, out of respect for the law and for our country, no prior president chose to employ: laws are only as effective as those who follow them and those willing to enforce them. Having surrounded himself with the opposite, privileged with a Congress empowered by a fog-brained electorate to ignore his every transgression, and granted nearly complete immunity by less-than-supreme Justices, Trump does what he wants, enriches himself beyond imagination, and gets away with it unchallenged, except by a powerless minority. And he’s doing everything he can, come November, to keep that minority from power.

There are consequences. For example, replacing departing FBI agents who refused to serve an incompetent leader, Kash Patel has lowered hiring standards. Per CBS, “According to multiple sources briefed on the matter, the FBI did so to facilitate hiring in some cases, even if candidates acknowledged they engaged in sexually deviant activities or stole from an employer.” Hiring criteria for ICE, it’s apparent, are even lower, as those masked thugs appear to enjoy brutalizing non-white immigrants, most of whom have no criminal records and, lately, were here legally.

Deporting “the worst of the worst” has long since disappeared from Trump’s incoherent rhetoric. It’s all about intimidation and, like Putin and Kim, quashing dissent. When I served in Vietnam, the military newspaper, Stars and Stripes, enjoyed editorial and content freedom dating from the Civil War. I looked forward to every issue. Pentagon Pete, demanding content aligned only with his tough-guy preening, fired its editor and the woman (!) in charge of protecting its independence. It’s another marker on the path(ology) to authoritarianism, unchecked by Congress, SCOTUS, or MAGA voters.

What else is new in Trump’s America? He just defunded bike lanes on roads because they’re DEI. His cruel removal of legal status from Haitians has led to at least one suicide. The insanity has to stop. If we can overwhelm his vote-suppression tactics in November, it might.