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The Trump toxicity that unprecedently invaded the Nation’s body politic shows no sign of abating; rather, it has rapidly worsened, metastasizing to international, as well as previously infected national levels. It would seem unnecessary and redundant to again recount the ubiquitous areas of domestic miscreance, inclusive of the denigration of the U.S. Constitution and the established rule of law, and the absolute disregard for decency and the societal moral compass; evinced by the subject dystopic, egocentric, and amoral Chief Executive; who brazenly installs gold leaf in his toilet, destroys the East Wing of the Nation’s White bHouse to build a Grand Ballroom, the latter, estimated to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, while the Nation’s middle and lower classes are in dire financial stress; notably, as a consequence of his deluded program of imposing high tariffs upon America’s trading partners.

His hubristic disrespect for the established law and personal repudiation of the metaphysical requirements of the social compact have previously been detailed and, inarguably, constitute the empirical cause of our Nation’s observably temporal political and social malady.

Not content with the self-serving spoliation of the traditionally American free and salubrious way of life, Trump has recently arrogated to himself the Napolean-like assertion of international power and authority to unilaterally (i.e., without the approval of Congress) make war against selected, sovereign nations, like Venzuela; while dissonantly and publicly opposing such aggression in the case of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine and the ever-present threat of invasion of Teipai by Mainland China. Any reputable political scientist will readily agree that Trump’s bombing of Venezuelan boats, military incursion into that country, and summary arrest of its dictator and spouse is an overreaching disregard for sovereign independence and illegal. The arrest and detention of Maduro, the autocrat, by Trump, the would-be autocrat, is interesting as a matter of ironic political science, and thematically, an act of clear imperial excess.

Trump’s unacceptable replication of Napoleonic or Alexander the Great’s style of arrogant and illegal imperialism is inconsistent with American credo and is in startling opposition to its traditional morality and historical image. Donald J. Trump and his menagerie of circus side- show Cabinet Ministers have effectively erased America as an avatar of peace and democracy and have effectively reduced the future credibility of its principled positions relative to the Taiwan-China and Russia-Ukraine issues.

The Trump-MAGA administration can justly contemplate a well-deserved award of a gold cup for domestic and international strife and empirical misery.

-p.

It is our presumption that, based on the dystopian spectrum of events associated with the unprecedented Trump Administration, many notable responsive changes have occurred in the mundane lives of mainstream American citizens. In addition to basic lifestyle changes, such as a tightened budget, increased concern for healthcare costs, minimization of travel, concern regarding the equality of voting and application of legal rights, and sundry other matters made exigent by the Nation’s extant misguided and unprincipled management.

Among the notable changes is an ubiquitous shift in the choice of television channels (or “apps”) consequential to the startling, aberrant, and dystopic events, domestic and foreign, attributable to the presently serving, ignorant, self-serving Chief of State, resulting in empirically avoidable, but challenging outcomes.

The potential entertainment experience sought by a television consumer’s “Roku” selection, whether drama, mystery, comedy, western, or horror film are now all subsumed or virtually exceeded by the ubiquitous media news channels, whose daily content reliably stimulates the most ardent cinematic enthusiast; in fact exceeds such standard by being real and empirically impactful, as opposed to authored for viewers’ entertainment.

Every conceivable genre of cinematic stimulation is reliably included in the nedioa’s daily news reports during the extant period of the Trump tragic-comedy: egregious criminality, graft, larceny, defamation, sex trafficking (Epstein saga), military warfare (Venezuela, Iran, Nigeria), corruption (graft, hush money, fraud, voter interference), extortion), defamation, extortion, rape, and sexual abuse, treason, bigotry, inhumanity, (elimination of USAID), irresponsibility ( elimination of Federal health research and disease prevention agencies), the evils of bias, (notably xenophobia), violent political insurrection, the evils of greed and the excessive lust for wealth, the devolution of pathological egotism, the ultimate rewards of ignorance and incapability, the disrespect for law and societal morality, the wages of greed and colossal ignorance, the cruelty of insensitive wealth, the themes of justice and injustice, the ultimate hazards of thoughtless air pollution, political and personal corruption and serial mendacity, the eventual retribution for illregal and antisocial behavior, the wages of the exercise of hubristic power, the personal cost of ignorance and incapability, in addition to the themes of Vice and disregard for others are among the cinematic themes applicable to Donald J. Trump. fascinatingly and painfully viewed on the non-fiction news apps; all the more disturbing because of their realized factual, non-fictional existence.

In conclusion, we have noted the choice of ready availability of dramatic Roku television content in the daily perusal or television viewing of regular news reports, whose stimulation, since having realistic verisimilitude, thematically exceeds the impact of authored televised fiction.

Heaven, (realistically:” voters,”) help us!

-p,

We have eternally been gobsmacked, or, if you prefer, “discombobulated,” by the bizarre, irrational existence of reductive aversion toward innocent victims of discrimination, of every stripe. It has long been our assumption that the thematic characterological infirmity is initially acquired by means of the perverse persuasion of parents or influential associates, whose contextual antipathy infects the psyche of those socially vulnerable. We find it notable that, despite the ubiquitous nature and variety of bias and prejudice, certain common characteristics are observable. Illustrative examples of such thematic odium are briefly referenced below, together with an attempt at relevant rational explanation.

[Gay and gender prejudice]

Individuals born with systemic variation from the classic arrangement of chromosomes and hormones are as a consequence, consigned to the social categories of “gay,” “bisexual,” or “homosexual.” Sadly, the media reports virtually quotidian instances of physical abuse and ubiquitous discrimination practiced against said hapless class of citizens. Some ignorant reductionists harbor the dystopic belief that homosexuality, the physiological result of a chance variation in inherited genes, can be transmitted to the young, persuadable, bisexual population by pernicious influence or teaching. This ignorant assumption has engendered a great deal of unnecessary strife and personal injustice.

It is our presumption that this general category of bigotry is founded upon a conglomeration of reductive ignorance and, conceivably, a neurotically based, felt insecurity concerning personal feelings of insecure sexual orientation.

[Color, racial prejudice]

History attests to the eternal, pernicious, existence of unjustified, preconceived beliefs and opinions about individuals and groups, solely based upon their “race.” The latter noun, “Race,” is a tacticallconvenient, unscientific, and often arbitrary construct resulting in perverse utility to errant individuals or groups ascribing superiority and inferiority to identifiable groups of people, to buttress their perceived and presumptuous superior status ( see: early blog on the subject of race, “The Dirtiest Word”).

The human variant of skin color, analogous to that of chance hormonal and chromosomal arrangement, is a singular, inheritable feature of childbirth and inarguably unrelated to persona or capability. The judgmental or discriminatory utilization of such biological phenomenon for judgmental purposes is logically and empirically irrational and demonstratively indicative of a desire for comparative superiority, or a personal need for group acceptability. What rational mind can relate the relative percentage of melanin in an individual’s skin to his intelligence, capability, or character?

Yet, human history attests to a long history of judging an individual by his skin color rather than by his character, the obverse of the rational and empirical formulation of Martin Luther King, and the ultimate goal of the U.S. Constitution. A metaphysically incisive analysis of the psychological basis for racial prejudice, if ubiquitously possible, might ameliorate the universally toxic malady.

[Xenophobia, immigration]

It is an unjust and bizarre feature of a Nation, populated essentially by immigrants and their progeny, to empirically evince the extant, roiling immigration dispute. The contextual noun connotes simply the desire for permanent change of citizenship and has no rational relevance to characterological or moral attribution. The illogical and unjust prejudgment of immigrants as miscreants or as undesirables are illustratative of a factually reductive and markedly selfish “xenophobic” inclination. The change of citizenship for the opportunity of an improved way of life, as publicly invited by the prominently displayed Statue of Liberty, was the motivation for historical American immigrants and those longing to enter today. Their denial is selfish and personally unappreciative. A rethinking of this humanistic franchise is needed.

[Religious bias]

Despite the felt and expressed intention of the Founders that the Nation be administered by purely secular considerations of rectitude ( N.B., the Constitution does not contain any reference to a Deity), a vast portion of the American population is motivated by the unconstitutional, ethnocentric desire to make our multi- ethnic Republic, a “Christian Nation.

Perhaps, the most egregious aspect of religious evangelism is its reductively oriented desire to impose its religious beliefs upon others, religious and secular. The framers stated that, “If we put ‘God’ in the Constitution, we put Man out.” The cruel history of religious repression is an ugly blemish upon Man’s history and an atavistic feature of a people who avow liberty. It has been our disappointed observati that recently, the reductive belief in religion in government has metastasized as far as the Supreme Court.

Enlightenment and awareness of the Bill of Rights must be emphasized, consistent with the philosophical intent of our venerable Founders and moral freedom.

-p.

We can think of no expression more suitable or empirically descriptive of the Trump Presidential Administration than the popular sardonic expression, “The lunatics are running the asylum.” In the unlikely event that a reader is not familiar with the critical expression, it signifies that entirely inappropriate people are in charge of an institution, making irrational decisions.

To be painfully accurate, the current administration has, in non-fictional reality, exceeded the nightmarish irrationality and the bizarre distortion of empirical reality as depicted in such fiction as “The Trial,” or the “Metamorphosis,” by Franz Kafka, the lunacy of Lewis Carroll’s “Mad Hatter,” or the weird imaginings of H.G. Lovelace.

The traditional American citizen presently finds himself witness to an Executive leadership, which, in unprecedented disregard of Law, Constitution, Congress, and precedential American history, unilaterally makes war on foreign Nations, asserts proprietary claim to other sovereignties like Canada and Greenland, eliminates his country’s health system, seeks retribution against his political opponents, despite the historical existence of the contested two-party system, hubristically utilizes the Nation’s military for ideationally perceived justifications, unilaterally smashes the East Wing of the Nation’s venerated White House for personal projects, imposes high tariffs on the Nastion’s trading partners, withdraws the Nastion from Treaties and Agencies, purposed to avert the Planet’s ultimate erxtinction, monarchially raises a private, masked army to exact genecidial acts against the Nsation’s peaceful Hispanic residents, persecutes institutions of higher education, incites and supports a violent insurrectioin, then pardons the seditious participants, dangerously and irreationally purloins givernmental top secret documents in his (accessible) Country Club toilet, has has been found guilty, after trial by jury, of 34 felonies and is the named accused in many other federal indictments, has horrifically decimated the Federal Civil Service, polluted the Office of the U,S, Attoirney General and the FBI, consorted with the Nation’s anti-American, White Christian Militias, as well as the Nation’s known, autocratic enemies, is proximately responsible for tens of thousands of unecessary deaths, during the Covid pandemic by his ignorant acts of misleading malpractice,, hubristically placing his name on Nationally venerated public institutions, has dishonored deceased young military interred at Arlington Nationalk Cemetery by calling them “suckers,” and “loosers,” militated “dig, baby dig” (for coal) despite the salutary movements seeking to ameliorate global warming, contrary to the Founder’s avowed anti-monarchial intentiuons, installing gold leaf throughout the White House, elimination of programs of medicinal from desperately needy governments abroad, disgracefullky using the Whitehouse as a retail Shopping Mall fot the sale of consumer items, violating the “Emoluments Clause of the Constitution by shamelessly and astronomically increasing his personal and family wealth. The recounting of inappropriate examples of bizarre, unprecedented instances of Donald Trump’s inappropriate and manifestly illegal actions could fill several volumes of criminal and clinical studies.

The acceptably abridged form of “the blog” does not afford sufficient space to recount the many similarly disgraceful, abnormal, and shocking acts of Trump’s selected menagerie of inept, unprincipled, yet mandatorily loyal, Cabinet; however, the reader is presumably surfeited with the contents of the extensive list.

This may be the first time in man’s written history, fictional as well as non-fictional, where the dire clinical diagnoses of the warden and staff in charge of a lunatic asylum are, themselves, chronically incurable.

We anxiously and responsibly look forward to a more salubrious Republic.

-p.

This morning’s warm, bare-chested embrace

Of our amorous and purring “Gelato.”

Was an apt celebration of,

Our happiness at feeling better

After an evening of digestive distress.

Yet, the overriding contemplative recognition that,

Despite the temporal discomfort of geriatric status

Our “bad guys” are merely joint pain and a walker

And the “good guys,” the experiential acquisition

Of sage perception and empirical understanding

A bumper harvest from lifelong contemplation.

Yeilding mature perception and ultimate ken

Inarguably, far more metaphysically celebratory

[Leonard N. Shapiro, NYC 1/1/26]

Purchasers of real estate prudently protect themselves by the inclusion of a provision in the relevant purchase contract, conditioning the sale upon the absence of the presence, or “infestation” of termites in the subject property. Termites are reliably known to undermine a building’s structure by eating away at its wooden supports or members. In instances where termites are, in fact, discovered, yet the damage to the building’s integrity is easily repairable, the obnoxious pests can be professionally exterminated, and the building rejuvenated.

From the inception of the Founders’ new and radical conception of a Nation, “by and for the People,” it has been understood that such an enlightened conception was ubiquitously vulnerable; most especially, as Jefferson and Franklin admonished, based upon the quality of its citizens. Our unique Republican Democracy has, in fact, proved able to survive many existentially threatening challenges, Slavery and the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Great Depression, two World Wars, Vietnam, and the scourge of McCarthyism.

In recent times, however, our Democratic Republic, contextually symbolized by “The White House,” albeit, still on its graduul way to perfection, yet, structurally sound, has, sadly suffered an ill-fated transfer of stewardship to a pestilent swarm of contaminative and democratically destructive infestation of a perverse, habitation by pestulent malefactors, who, like the progressive and undermining destruction of structures by termites, have actively and visibly, been engaged in the foundational destructioin of the supporting members of our C onstitutional democracy.

The inestimable number of full dumpsters of un-American, autocratic, and perverse policies of the Trump Administration, steadily eating away at the support structure of our Nation’s traditionally democratic polity, as designed in our Constitution, the undermining of the precedential and statutory Rule of Law, and acceptable societal morality, have been painfully detailed in past writings.

The autocratic impatience for the gradual destruction of the supporting structure of our Democratic Republic may best be analogized by Donald Trump’s impatient demolition oif the East Wing of America’s venerated White House.

In the same way that it is acceptably rational and prudent to conduct a termite search prior to taking title to real estate, it is certainly the exercise of basic prudence and, indeed, of existential importance to properly vet all aspiring nominees for the Presidential office, to avoid the invasion of destructive vermin and accompanying swarm of compliant pestilence..

-p,

For purposes of gauging the anthropological and sociological development of humanity, academic specialists have usefully divided its long history into designated “Ages,” relevant to the respective progress of its physical and cultural development. Thus we read of the Prehistoric Ages, the “Stone Age,”” the ” Iron and Bronze Ages,” the Pre and Post, “Industrial Ages, the “Middle and “Dark” Ages, the “Age of Enlightenment,” and, finally, the”Modern Age,” The mere cursoryreview of such conveniently denominated periods will readily reveal the ubiquitous advancement of Hunkind toward his present state.

For the thematic purposes of this writing, we have editorially chosen to designate the presenting portion of the “Modern Age” as the “Age of Trump,” or, dynamically, the “Dystopian Age,” by reason of the latter’s consistent Orwellian distortion of factual reality and its all-pervadingl dissonance.

To be clear, we have selectively employed the phrase “dystopian society” as one in which people live in insecurity or fear, depression, and misery under the control of a government that maintains its own perfection, but, in actuality, is painfully dehumanizing. Such a bizarrely nightmarish scenario is in its zenith of irrationality and level of moral caricature as we speak. For the first (and, hopefully, the last) time, empirical reality has been rendered acceptably subjective and acceptably viewed via an analogous fun house-distorting mirror.

The toxic etiology of such an insalubrious state of affairs is difficult to rationally tolerate, albeit, surprisingly, simple to account for, based upon the ubiquitous folk proverb, “The fish stinks (or, “rots”) from the head” [“piscus primus a capitolefoefet,” from Erasmus’ Adages]. Such consequential decline mandates a compliant society; o unhappily found in the Nation’s substantial underbelly of poorly informed and inadequately educated, grievance-inclined populists, financed by profit-loving, anti-regulation industrialists.

The fateful elevation of Donald J. Trump to the Nation’s Oval Office was not merely a defeat for principled, mainstream American citizens, but, as it soon evinced, an unexpected and effectively profound reversal in the ongoing development and maturation of human society. Human progress suffered while the populist underbelly of our Nation celebrated Trump’s dystopic and megalomaniac denigration of empirical reality, in favor of his atavistic and non-rational concept of “alternate facts,” and a primitive, subjective, and self-serving “alternate reality.”

Irrational, self-serving conspiracy ideation replaced empirical facts, and utilitarian reality orientation was overridden to comport with the transmogrification of gto irrational ideation, founded on selfish economic interest; butressed by an all-out autocratic attack upon the public media and higher education; the latter, reprehensible policies, historically common to would-be autocrats, as publicly declared by Donald Trump, have historically consulted the identical recipe. The egregious, societally backward results have been, unfortunately, outlined in previous writings and universally elsewhere.

The historic operation of our tri-partite polity, the significance of our usefully competitive two-party system, and the responses to occurring events were now governed by egocentric impulse and amorally perceived, ignorant criteria, rather than on factual rectitude and accepted historical precedent. National standards and public policy were predictably distorted by irresponsible populist sources of consumption, rather than by reliable news sources.

In sum, the evaluation of political issues declined to the status of chosen perspectives, rather than factual reality. The reality of the election was not based upon the popular competition of rational principles, but empirically reduced to a competition between public grifters and guileful demagogues. Irrational conspiracy theory, bigotry and competing populist propaganda memes were the controverted contents of the election during the Trump fiasco. The competition was, sadly, not between relevant political and economic principles but between competing, disparate ideologies of basic reality.

It is our hope and expectation that the noisome fog of Trump-inspired dystopia will be dispelled upon his salutary retirement from office and that the beneficial course of rational and salubrious progress towards more rational a nd just governance will historically and beneficially resume.

-p.

The reader is requested to recall the lighted exhibits installed in the walls of the New York Museum of Natural History, portraying animal life in its respective recreated natural environment. The designated name is specifically indicated, and the museum goer is free to furnish their personal reaction and enunciated response.

For the specific purposes of this writing, the reader is respectfully requested to replicate, as possible, a typical museum visitor’s inclination to view our presented diorama, with similarly curious objectivity, in an effort to enhance the intented, objective context of this writing; despite any previous relevant, censorious commentary, To the extent possible our present intent is to express an objective visualization of the displayed thematic subject in an analogously depicted setting of a museum diorama. In return, we will strive for literary objectivity, without any expression of rectitude or indication of subtle schadenfreude, whether or not the same are morally justified. What is intended is an objective transmission of the sui-generis persona of the sitting President and our perception of the personal cost attributed to such unique attributes.

It is our considered view, that the contextual protagonist, the President of the United States, remains, contemporaneously, of the same inclination as the “enfant terrible” described in our writings concerning our perception of his early life; viz., capable of kicking his mother in the shins to garner desperately needed personal attention, despite the predictable punitive response; Trump is perceived by us, in his maturity, as, identically the same immature supplicant for exclusive attention, (regardless of consequential cost). His lifelong need for universal recognition as an admired “winner” has apparently enjoyed a lifetime of exclusive rumination.. This syndromic life pattern is empirically accompanied by a lifelong sensitivity and militant response to phenomena appearing offensive to that existentially vital goal, whether empirically based or conceptually construed.

Such demanding lifetime syndrome mandates a “full-time of active surveillance., leaving scant consideration for empirical or objective truth. It is relevantly notable that Donald J. Trump has relevantly derogated objective fac to more personally useful, “alternate facts,” to serve his delusional aspirations to be admired or publicly celebrated as a”winner.” The countless number of dumpster-full examples of cost to the Nation and its international standing have previously been recounted and are universally known. What may not be adequately known is the extent of our presumption of the extreme personal cost attendant upon such personally imposed, external aberration, not readily discernible from the referenced, external, museum-like examination.

What is often described by the media and the multitude of Trump’s detractors is the image of a limited “bubble” in which the Donald safely and protectively resides as a contextual explanation for, his singularly bizarre perceptions and his demonstrable incapacity; Trump appears to be serving as a life-term prisoner ( no parole) in his all protective, myopic”bubble” of neuroticly fueled, rationally unexamined ambiance.

We can rationally, presume the existence of the exorbitant, life-altering cost of merely “keeping one’s head above the water,” in a daily Presidential deluge of challenges, taxing the most emotionally adjusted individual; but Donald J. Trump has irrefutably demonstrated that he falls abysmally short of such admirable status and conspicuously reacts to presenting stimuli, with demonstrably bizarre and irrationally based response, doubtlessly metastisized by his ample inventory of syxtemic egomania and egoistic neuroticism.

We can find no conceivable room for humanistic tolerance or acceptability in Trump’s Midas-like gargantuan and loveless accumulation of gold, nor of his inept iteration of the hapless, buck-naked, publicly parading Emperor without clothes. Our concern is centered upon the threatened endurance of our besieged, beloved Democratic Republic, in light of this highlighted, eternally frustrated neurotic and maliciously intended despoiler.

-p.

We have chosen to reprise a subject of existential importance, whose nature may be passed over in the extant madness of current events. The roiling issues of a democratically offensive Presidency, the abominable madness of xenophobic lunacy, the economic woes, and the reprehensible financial inequality of the Nation’s citizenry, the questionable morality of our political representatives are, individually, all- absorbing and consequential; however, at our ultimate peril, we dare not lose our sense of fundamental societal perspective. Current events, regardless of number and relatively perceived import, are empirically temporal; civilizational and societal matters have contrasting enduring consequences

The subject of our exponentially impactful, societal transmogrification from the salubrious state of personalized communication and interaction to one of singularity and personal detachment, deemed to be existentially alarming, such that we have chosen to reprise our recent statement of such contextual concern.

Our overriding anxiety relates to society’s contrasted rate of scientific (i.e., computer-digital) advancements compared to human knowledge; most specifically, its empirically dehumanizing impact. In our view, concern for the optimum health of society clearly surpasses the ability to maintain conveniently brief contact by digital device or facile automation. As we see it, the empirical increase in robotic facility, varies inversely with natural societal interaction and resultant humanism.

We have eternally urged the precedence of societal consideration of “should” as a responsible prerequisite to the felt, consequential challenge of “could.” To put it in different vocabulary, we are deeply concerned about the rate of digital progress above responsible consideration of humanistic and societal impact and knowledge. The cogent differences between “wise” and “smart,” “facile” or “convenient” appear to have far less humanistic consequences than the state of non-social and lonely. The trade-off between a fulfilled and socially satisfactory life and cold singularity would, logically and empirically, seem easy to evaluate.

In sum, we cannot let the Trump-MAGA, Epstein, Bitcoin, Venezuela, Immigration, Tariffs-inflated prices, gerrymandering, White House desercration, SCOTUS degradation, federal civil service holocaust, vaccine misrepresentation, health insurance threats, and the other plentifully cogent issues of the day, obscure the metastasizing, existential impact of Silicon Valley upon Society, Mainstrean American citizens are responsibly urged to both, “walk and chew gum,” simultaneously.

-p.

It takes a singular act of grace

Showing care for another’s plight,

Putting aside one’s personal concern

And entering another’s angst

A moment of temporal self-disregard

That will credibly suffice as “Grace.”

The voyage to another’s thoughts

The election to make a responsive trek

To another’s temporal sadness

Reveals the worth of Homo Sapiens

In its spiritual potential to

Render mute self-centered care

And reveal his skill at systemic grace,

-p.

[Leonard N, Shapiro NYC, 12/26/25]