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...Donald J. Trump,
the 47th president of the United States, spent the night
of April 12 and into the early morning hours unleashing a barrage of
AI-generated images, threats and insults.
Trump shares AI image of 'Himself as Jesus' after criticizing Pope Leo.
Trump has now revealed his dream to erect a 'Trump Hotel' on the Moon...
Yet another lashed out at Pope Leo XIV as weak on crime, suggesting he owed his papacy to Trump and,
After significant outcry - including from his own evangelical and MAGA supporters - Trump deleted the post but refused to apologize for it.
These posts are not 'anomalies'...
It is behavior that mirrors the governing style:
The same egomania driving Trump's online persona is shaping his presidency.
Having inherited one of the strongest economies in the world, he has overseen policies that have left average Americans struggling to stay afloat, even as his allies and corporate partners grow richer.
Whether driven by ego or manipulation - by flattery, spectacle or greed - the result is the same:
He is even staging a UFC fight on the White House lawn on his 80th birthday as part of the nation's 250th anniversary celebrations.
All of this while Americans struggle with rising grocery costs, unaffordable healthcare, and economic instability driven by his reckless policy decisions.
And yet, despite widespread fatigue, desensitization, and normalization of this behavior, there must come a point when we acknowledge what is plainly visible:
This is no longer a matter of partisan disagreement or political style.
To any objective viewer, Donald Trump's behavior - which has always been erratic at best - has become increasingly unstable.
As the New York Times reports,
As the oldest person elected to the White House, Trump - who turns 80 this year - oscillates between vicious politicking, relentless self-idolatry, and serving as the sleight-of-hand prop for what increasingly resembles an organized crime operation - one that operates behind the floodlights to consolidate power and wealth while robbing the American electorate blind.
Trump's self-mythologizing is unprecedented in modern American politics.
As journalist Peter Baker notes, Trump,
Trump even toyed with the idea of renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of Trump.
Cults of personality are hallmarks of authoritarian regimes - not constitutional republics.
Trump's personality cult has, as the New York Times Editorial Board noted, "transformed the Republican Party from a political organization into a cult of personality" - one that reinforces and amplifies his excesses.
We are, as Pope Leo XIV warned, mired in a,
Which brings us to the unavoidable question:
In other words,
The Constitution provides a remedy.
The 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a process by which,
A growing chorus of individuals have loudly called to invoke the 25th Amendment, insisting that,
The same voices that once called for invoking the 25th Amendment against Joe Biden have fallen silent - or worse, attempted to dismiss Trump's instability as authentic and refreshingly unfiltered.
But there is no filter for this level of dysfunction.
Yet again, the troubling parallels to America's nascent beginnings are hard to ignore.
Yet even so, this moment is about so much more than one man and his cult of personality.
Because while the president may be unraveling in plain sight, the machinery of the American Police State continues to expand - quietly, relentlessly, and with bipartisan support.
And unlike the presidency, there is no 25th Amendment for the police state.
After all,
The American Revolution was, at its core, a judgment: that unchecked power must be resisted.
That principle still stands.
As I make clear in 'Battlefield America - The War on the American People' and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the answer is,
If the government has become unfit - whether through madness, corruption or unchecked power - then it is up to "we the people" to hold it accountable.
Because if we fail to act, we may
soon find that the problem is no longer one unstable leader - but a
system that no longer answers to the people at all.
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