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Until the regressive choice of the Trump Presidential Administration, the American Democratic Republic, with ample justification, boasted of its material abundance, as well as its afforded liberty and demonstrated humanism; the latter, symbolized, among other things, by the Statue of Liberty, the former, incorporated into its Constitutional Bill of Rights. The Nation’s signature grant of freedom of expression was inarguably evinced by a large, independent media, by its free Universities, and a system of Nationwide, unencumbered public library system, museums, and National Public Radio.

The Nation’s statutory and judicial determinations were responsibly charged with the resolution of human issues, “without fear or favor.” The Founders’ politically fundamental principle was the institutional aspiration for a governance, “by and for the People,” as faithfully guided by the citizens’ right to vote. A tripartite architecture of government (“Separation of Powers”) was construed with mutual authority to prevent any abuse by another branch (“Checks and Balances”) as a legal restraint to deter excess and ensure democratic rule.

Despite some discrete (but notably instructive), low points in the history of our Democratic Republic, the Founders’ conception was successfully accomplished, or at bottom, well along in the process, and the Nation experienced the desirable benefits of democratic rule, as well as material abundance. Policies of compassionate capitalism were construed to avoid or ameliorate the harsh personal eventualities of the dynamics of free market capitalism. The mantra of “moving up” by educational advancement has been reliably proven to be a personal dynamic to improved material success.

The comprehensive patchwork quilt of available abundance and quality of American life and opportunity was rudely shredded by the populist elevation of Donald J. Trump to the Office of the American Presidency. His atavistic efforts at authoritarianism, encompassing a philosophical blindness to the constitution and the rule of law, his complete lack of societal moral compass, and his neurotic egocentrism, combined with his ignorance and a warped reductionism, have morphed the Nation from a traditionally reputed avatar of justice and freedom, and a successfully abundant Nation, to a mimesis of reprehensible atavistic tyranny.

Trump’s systemic amoral baseness, diagnosably explored in length in previous writings, appears, as previously observed, to have its singular etiology in a lack of normal socialization, resulting in delusions of grandeur, inclusive, thematically, of a reductionist understanding of National and International issues; contextually including trade relationships. His delusional persona adds impetus to his distorted understanding of interactive world trade issues, including appropriate relationships with the United States’ long-established trading partners, as well as with its empirical competitors. Such a flawed understanding of commerce, international and domestic (as well as other personally perceived interactions), is part and parcel of his sophomoric mindset, that all trades and commercial relations necessarily evince a “winner” and a “loser.”

The latest, and most devastating iteration of his winning-losing neurosis is inarguably demonstrated in his reductive understanding of “tariffs” and the latter’s implications for the Nation’s businesses and its consumers ( to whom he pledged lower prices in his “snake-oil” campaign promises.) In empirical fact, the raising of tariffs is not an aggressive assertion of power against a foreign nation (“winning”) but leads to the inevitable effect of domestic increases in prices, to the consumer in the price of imported goods. Trump’s singular neurotic predelection that all transactions imply a “winner” and a “loser, analogous to his egregious and authoritarian lack of recognition of the American system of human rights, will ineluctably result in a pandemic of empty store shelves as well as the grim potential of a National authoritarian wasteland.

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Mainstream American citizens, by now, doubtlessly have concluded that the current Presidential Administration is far from acceptable based upon its demonstrated incapability, lack of moral responsibility, and convenient repudiation of the Nation’s Constitution and rule of law. While, concededly, American history reveals the Republic’s experience of other disreputable Presidential Administrations, none of such comparable historical miscreants exhibited an effective regression of the dynamic process of Man’s political and social development.

President Andrew Johnson was impeached for the wrongful dismissal of a prominent member of his Cabinet and certain other offenses, Andrew Jackson is revealed to be shamefully guilty of “racial cleansing of indigenous Americans, Richard Nixon had his celebrated, “Watergate,” however, notably, no previous errant Chief Executive has chosen to openly violate established legal and humanistic societal standards other than Donald Trump; in his assertion of unrestrained power, analogous to an absolute Euroopean Monarch or an intimidating Chieftain of cowed Stone Age cave dwellers.

The beneficial development and pragmatic endurance of human society are existentially dependent upon Man’s acceptance of, and compliance with, what Locke and Rousseau termed “The Social Compact” (“Contract”). The theory suggests that societies are formed under an implicit agreement in which individuals mutually surrender certain freedoms in exchange for communal security and safety. It contextually implies that governance is attained by an election conducted in compliance with such accepted standards of behavior.

Unfortunately, modern history demonstrates a (mercifully, small) genre of homo sapiens who elect not to, or are not able to join as a party to the social compact and perceive themselves as outside its communally accepted criteria regarding acceptable behavior; these include criminal and other dignosable psychopaths, and delusionally egocentric neurotics; the latter, empirically inclusive of the persona of dictatorial autocrats ( and ” would be” dictatorial autocrats).

We have amply commented on Donald Trump’s nuanced standards of acceptable behavior, the latter, resulting in numerous criminal adjudications, outstanding indictments, systemic rejection of factual truth, in favor of the subjective promotion of “alternate Facts,” denigration of the constitution and rule of law, opposition to education and human advancement, unrestrained violation of theEmolument Clause” to illegally garner personal enrichment, payment of “hush money” to prostitutes, incitement of insurrection, criminally premised upon his deciertful and un-American denial of the results of a valid election; followed by his pardon of such insurrectionists, his repeated treasonous liaison with the leaders of the Nation’s defined enemies, attempts to weaken NATO, purloining of top secret documents, attack on America’s elite Universities and on education itself, evident bigotry and support of un-American White Christian Militias, and his opposition to all programs of compassionate capitalism, voz., social security, disability, and Medicaid ; we might go on, ad infinitum and ad nauseum.

The contextual message of this writing is intended to proffer a rather simple, but, profoundly impactful, explanation of the deplorable, morally offensive behavior of Donald J. Trump, regarding such ubiquitous, offensive and immoral behavior. Our message is that he is neurotically egocentric and thus emotionally unable to be a party to any humanistic societal contract, but rather, singularly and determinately, resides in his perceptive bubble; neurotically insulated from established societal and moral propriety.

Those who would, nonetheless, support the leadership of Donald J. Trump might well be reminded that they are dealing with a complete stranger to the established societal standards of decency and moral accommodation, implicitly subscribed to by its members. The nature and extent of expectations of his singular behavior and bizarre proclamations of governmental policy are thus as perversely predictable as an infestation of a nest of subterranean termites on fundamentally important wooden house supports.

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Since the formation of the white supremacist organization, the Ku Klux Klan in 1865, the notion of “White Christian Supremacy” has fueled reductionist hatred and bigotry in the United States. Relevantly, the “Great Displacement Theory,” ethno-nationalist, i.e.,” White,” groups have maintained a neurotic fear of being “replaced” by non-white immigrants. Their blatantly hateful offences against non-Christian and brown or black individuals have varied empirically. obnoxious, prejudicial conduct to homicide. In common with implicitly reductionist features of race and ethnic prejudice, they forego humanistic recognition of the “other,” and, in their egregious intolerance, routinely eschew the provisions of the U.S. Constitution and the law of the land.

The bigot’s declared, reductively ignorant, but passionate cry is: “They will not replace us!’ The latter martial battle cry demonstrates not only a betrayal of the American mantra of liberty and its avowed motto, ” E Pluribus Unum,” but also an ignorant and delusional mindset. Aside from its lack of empirical recognition that Homo Sapiens are born in different colors and diversdely acquired ethnos, the illusion that such miscreants represent the epitamy and ultimate embodiment of the standard and acceptable iteration of the human race, is as farfetched as its pronounced, reductive and delusional hubris; illustrative of the empirical observation that ignorance and resultant reductive thought are conjoined twins, difficult, or anecdotally impossible to separate.

Modern human beings, according to scientific human anthropology, originated on the continent of Africa and subsequently spread worldwide, replacing the Neanderthal and other early species. This theory is the universally accepted model in the field of paleoanthropology, relative to the geographical origin and early appearance of the modern iteration of the human being. Any “selfie” will attest to the discernible plethora of human change and “replacement” since the Stone Ages.

The profuse tattoos on Trump’s selection of our aberrant Secretary of Defense, attesting permanently to his support of Christian White Militias, is a demonstration that such xenophobic and religious bias, shared by a ubiquitous assertion of reductively ignorant citizens, relative to their delusion that white American Christianity is the ultimate zenith of Natural Evolution and that they are mandated to avoid its pollution. In addition to its being morbidly delusional, as testified to by Man’s known developing and changing history, the ideation is harmful to the retention of liberty and democracy; the latter, our Nation’s aspirational foundation.

Based upon our previous perception of some of the enraged militant faces of the Trump-inspired insurrectionists, it would be conceivable to imagine a conceivable scenario in which Neanderthal Man might, programmicly protest against the developing appearance of the Cro-Magnon, the protesters bearing heavy stone-sculptured signs enunciating, in prehistoric pictorial symbols, “We will not be replaced.”

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The publicised event of Pope Francis’s historic passing seemed to evoke thoughts concerning the traditional Biblical religious canon and its singular social impact upon modern empirical thought and prejudices. We have previously conjured up the Bible’s apocryphal recitation of the beginnings of Mankind, specifically portrayed in the Book of Genesis, which, for believers, apparently has had an enduring effect on social thought and behavior. Thematically, it is understood by countless believers to justify the arcane concept of “Original Sin,” as well as having an enduring effect upon the unfairly assigned status to women (ask J.D., Vance).

The universally accepted message is well known: Adam is tempted by Eve to eat a fruit ( an apple) from the “Forbidden “Tree of Knowledge on which the inciting serpent resided, resulting in the banishment of the couple (mankind) from the “Garden of Eden.” ( previous condition of ignorance). A simple conceit, but which thereafter evolved to be humanistically devastating. In our view, it is symbolically erroneous, albeit retaining an enduring and cogent religious and social significance.

The presence of a serpent (the snake) in ancient mythology and belief was universally considered a symbol of fertility (Freudian?) by recognized mythologists such as Joseph Campbell. To our resultant perception, a symbol of fertility, residing in the “Tree of Knowledge,” would empirically symbolize mental fertility. Eve’s apocryphal ooffering of the apple from the “Tree of Knowledge would symbolically and affirmatively accord credit to women for Mankind’s acquisition of consciousness of self (“of his “nakedness”), no longer, thereafter, to remain insapient like the other creatures of creation (i.e., “banished from the Garden of Eden.) In our view, the concept of every infant as being born in sin (“Original Sin”) is more than bizarre and pessimistic, but, thematically, symbolically erroneous.

The enduring concept of Eve (Woman) as temptress and Adam sinfully partaking of the “Forbidden Apple,” might, consistent with ancient beliefs, more justly, salubriously, and perhaps, consistently, be perceived as symbolically demonstrating that it was woman who delivered knowledge to Mankind, rather than tempting him and his entire Earthly progeny to life-long sin. Unfortunately, and undeservedly, like the Greek God, Prometheus, she was granted a rather bad rap.

Having desirably declared our critique of misapprehended Biblical mythology, we would affirm our strong and enduring preference for judging people, irrespective of their sex or gender, by their empirically demonstrated character.

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In our late octogenarian musings, we have often analogized our ancient condition to a used automobile, viz., worn joints, slow mobility, and the frequent need for service. At times, we see ourselves as an old “Chevy,” needing frequent mechanical service, and, for some of our contemporaries, a change of parts.

In this conceptual analogy, we have had the exotic experience of perceiving a mundane television commercial as having an unintended and unexpected metaphysical significance. The relevant advertisement relates to an automobile service that offers the service of determining whether an apparently shiny, new auto offered for sale has previously been in a damaging collision. The advertiser styles the offered service “Carfax” and presents an alert car fox who utters, “Give me the carfax (car facts) ” relative to its possible history of an automobile offered for sale as “new”, despite its having empirically sustained a collision.

As declared, we were somehow inspired to conceptualize the commercial as symbolic of a humanistic message concerning our perceptive appraisal of others with whom we interactively relate. The commercial advertiser offers for sale its investigative services to determine the possible existence of an accident-damaged automobile, deceitfully offered for sale at full price. Analogously, as interactive members of society, are we responsibly obliged to consider the possibility of human trauma in the societally pleasant smile of others? Pragmatically missing is a smart and discernible fox to guide us in our appraisal of others, appropriately deservant of empathic consideration.

Anecdotally, as unsophisticated young first generation American children growing up in the immigrant ambience of the 1940’s Brooklyn, we regularly witnessed the elements of past trauma and struggle, reflected in the time-worn, tragic faces of the elder generation bearing personal histories of suffering from European antisemitism and severe economic privation; regarding which troubles apparently seem to make their enduring imprint, notwithstanding their occasionally smiling face.

The readily available inclination to such perceptive sensitivity was implicitly imprinted on our psyche, maintaining its enduring cognitive application in our contemporary interactions; the outward stimulus for the caution being, anecdotally, less readily apparent and discernible.

In our view, successful societal life mandates an appropriate awareness and sensitive consideration of the experiential history of other societal members regarding the possibility of past challenges and their sublimina. endurance, as analogously illustrated in the contextual television commercial.

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The recent passing of Pope Francis, followed, thematically, by his previously requested, abridged official ceremony, appropriately warrants our sincere condolences. In addition, it presents the observation of certain singular phenomena relative to the phenomenon and dynamics of ubiquitous human change, notably those relating to Man’s eternal religious beliefs and practices.

Generally speaking, religious faith involves adherence to a particular religion and spiritual system of doctrines and ceremonies relative to the worship of a God. It represents a specialized choice of mysticism and significantly affects the manner and cognitive process of believers.

As we read history, Catholicism, knowledgeably, ruled by a papacy, the latter, the reportedly oldest continuing absolute monarchy in World history, developed a highly sophisticated mode of theology and an elaborate organizational structure.

A reading of medieval history reveals the “Dark Ages” periods of the Catholic Church, evincing inquisitions, pogroms, and autocratic control of the population, especially refererable to the lower classes, in which barbaric inquisitions, torture, and ubiquitous misery were inflicted upon those charged with “heresy” (often over petty matters) in an unchanging system of orthodox autocracy. The Church was “infallible” in its doctrines so that any variation in doctrinal belief, often, conclusively determined by the mere choice of words, meant cruel and barbaric retribution.

In the 16th Century, responsive to the above-described tyranny, the “Period of Protestant Reformation developed, offering changes and reforms deemed repugnant to orthodox Catholicism, leading to conflict and brutal religious warfare. As a notable example, the bloody “Thirty Years’ War” in Central Europe (1618 to 1648), in which history reports, casualties numbered between 4.5 to 8 million, from battle, famine, and disease.

Change, for the persona of Man, has eternally been slow and painful; most notably, and empirically, changes in religious orthodoxy, belief, and practice. It is this time-honored observation that makes the life of the late Pope Francis singularly significant and memorable, even to secular empiricists.

The incomparable significance of “humanism,” not consistently an observable feature in the recorded history of the Catholic Church, was, notably, the defining quality of the late Pope Francis, an aspirational quality to which all men, religious or secular, should appropriately aspire. Unlike the previous “Princes of the Church,” Francis injected into the historic institution the salubrious features of modesty and humanism, so exemplary in the case of an ordained Catholic Pope. Such notable grace provided the motivation for this confirmed secularist to praise his life by this written memorial.

In a religion in which official doctrine eternally praises simple faith and poverty, yet evinces gold leaf roofs, iconic treasures, enormous wealth, and pomp and ceremony, Pope Francis demonstrated the appropriate realization of its eternal representations concerning pius simplicity and loving regard for humanity so overlooked in its many centuries of past history; revolutionary change without official reformation or bloody conflict.

Among the notable reforms of Pope Francis are his modernizing of the traditional Mass, allowing access to influential meetings of Bishops to Lay people, allowing Priests to bless same-sex couples and baptism of children of transgender parents, and refusal to deny communion to people who support abortion. Reportedly, when asked about a Priest who was purported to be gay, he replied, “Who am I to judge? [N.B.: a modest response from the canonical “Infallible Pope,”], residence in a nearby guesthouse instead of the ornate Papal Residence, driving around town in a modest Ford, and democratically advocating for a greater role for women in the Church.

We, who steadfastly adhere to a Lockean, secular, and empirical philosophy of life, nevertheless, admire the refreshing humanism of the late Pope Francis, the spiritual leader of an institution regarding which that venerable quality has not always been a steadfast, reliable concomitant.

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Should you care to know the date,

Mark it, Wildebeast Wednesday

The sun is up, the coffee perked

Soon will be time to join the herd

Stampeding down the dusty road

In its horde transit to greener sites

And in the late afternoon,

To return for food and find some rest.

Some may choose to watch TV

The words of King Orange Widebeast

Churning dust, yet going nowhere.

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(Leonard N. Shapiro, NYC 4/28/25

The American mainstream citizen has regularly been witness to the presumptuously misnamed policy of personalized vengeance designated by the “Orange Avenger” since his dystopic, Orwellian elevation to what had historically been a traditionally venerable Oval Office. Trump’s arrogant use and declaration of the thematic noun, “retribution,” is revealingly symptomatic of his singular level of personal hubris and neurotically presumptuous ideation.

It seems impossible to rationally comprehend the unique persona of an individual so encased and invested in his own reductive bubble, that, albeit President of the most powerful and influential Nation on the planet, evaluates temporal reality by the reductive ideation as to his perception as personally “winning” or “losing.”

The word “retribution” properly refers to the just meting out of punishment by an official authority, such as the State, for societal wrongdoing, and is brightly contrasted with the individual perception, or motivational word, “Revenge.” The mere act of opposition to Donald Trump is transmogrified by virtue of his hubris and aberrant ideation to be deserving of the official status of “Retribution.”

Trump’s delusional perception as to what is acceptable or repugnant to society (read, “him”) appears to be sociopathically unfettered by his numerous criminal convictions, felony indictments, his demonstrated lack of moral compass, his serial mendacity, his overt acts of National treason, or his demonstrable incapability. Such blemishes on his character are distorted and construed by him merely as evidence of opponents’ vain attempts to discredit him. The game, stadium spectators, popcorn, and the umpire reside solely within the discombobulated venue of his perception.

The overweening perception of immense power, vested in such a monomaniac, provides the underpinnings of fear by the ever-present unpredictability of exercise of his dystopian, elected executive power. Wrongdoing is unrelated to rules, regulations, or societal norms; in such instances, it is defined by action, arbitrarily and neurotically, perceived by Donald J. Trump as contrary to his interest and, ipso facto, wrong, and justly deserving of his “retribution.”

We share in the apprehension and temporal angst concerning the potential harm and mayhem caused to the Nation by this Presidential cuckoo nest.

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Modern history has shown that the most effective antidote to the toxic disease of governmental repression and totalitarian rule is the existential endurance of independent, rational thought. The signature goal of higher education is the relevant promotion and advancement of individualized thought and its consequential goal, humanistic enlightenment; the latter, eternally constituting the singularly effective prophylaxis against totalitarianism.

Contextually, the Trump administration has perversely presented the notably identifiable symptoms of the malignant recurrence of virulent, diagnosable fascism. The latest tactic of its deceitful misrepresentation of the salutory, democratic word, “diversity,” has been to further transmogrify and toxicly metastasize to a fallacious, discreditable, and un-American accusation, those whose identifiable symptoms evince disagreement with MAGA agitprop.

It may not be necessary to comment on the blatently undemocratic, and inarguably unconstitutional nature of such egregious misuse of power, whose ambient odor is unavoidably noxious and repulsive; however, much insight to the procedural chess game is garnered from such overtly tactical efforts to “sanitize” education and its successfully traditional end product, individualized and mature perceptive.

For those who, conceivably, lack the requisite insight, we would contextual;lly declare, that the inculcation of authoritarian governance is existentially nourished and husbanded by an uninformed, inadequately educated, and myopic public; the latter being compliant, pliant, and malleable “sillyputty” in the egregious hands of totalitarian malefactors. A relevantly reprised admonition of Thomas Jefferson, to the effect that democratic government can only succeed if a Nation evinces literate and informed citizenry, has a particularly bright resonance in this context, (in addition to that as intended, viz., good governance.)

Trump’s egregious efforts to control university education irrefutably seek to apply the foul, heinous, and pungent”fertilizer” upon which the repulsive and indigestible stalks of fascism existentially feed and nocturnally thrive.

As any informed citizen is aware, the foul emergence of a tyrannical government can only be born and thrive in a venue evincing the noxious swamp of citizen ignorance and disinterest; the latter domicile. Inarguably, the preferred venue of Trump and his MAGA lemmings, but not the rationally chosen homestead of the educated and informed citizen.

Wisdom, derived from an uncensored liberal education, provides the fundamental underpinnings of an enduring democratic Nation and effectively constitutes the eternally effective prophylactic against autocracy.

It is encouraging to observe the recent growth of rejection of such tactics of , “cleansing,” predictably languishing in their present stages of public rejection and its predictable, historically appropriate mortality.

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After several frustrated years of inability to appropriately describe the sui-generis persona of Donald J. Trump, we were recently stricken with an epiphany, amounting to an acceptable mode of his portrayal. For years, the presenting conundrum resided, not in the inadequacy of critical adjectives in our lexicon, appropriately descriptive of his societally aberrant and bizarre persona, but in the anomalous applicability of all of them.

An adequate description of any individual, pragmatically requires the selection of a few outstandingly representative traits, positive or negative, to enable the rendition of a comprehensible picture of the subject, In the unique case of Donald J. Trump, it bizarrely appears that the entire inventory of negative adjectives is applicable, thus rendering, his personalized description intrinsicly indistinct and nebulous; indeed, one might randomly conjure up, at random, any negative adjectival attribution of Trump and deserve confidence in its empirical verisimilitude.

The singular difficulty in the portrayal of this uniquely unprecedented ogre, scientifically, and curiously identifiers as a member of the anthropological class of homo sapiens, may be avoided, as we recently have realized by the effort to conceive of his contextual perception as a comic book villain, who, escaping the c comic book pages of his fictionally creative role through some unseen portal and eerily arriving into the world of non-fictional reality, creating the singular occurrence of a mixed media reality.

One might recall from early life, certain memorable comic book villains, appearing in publications of D.C. Comics or Marvel Enterprises, LLC., such as “The Joker,” The Penguin,” “Magneto,” “Lex Luther,” and others among the copious menagerie of colorfully portrayed “bad guys,” and thus, discover that he is more capable of an acceptable referential description of the real-life, elebrated villain, the “Orange Autocrat” presently maintaining his darkly evil sway over the American Nation.

In the comic armegeddon, the fictionally created monster is reliably defeated by the publisher’s utilitarian and supremely capable super-hero, yet the contextual, non-fictional villain, aptly thus describable by reference to the action-packed comics, will not be confronted by a colorfully imagined super hero like Superman, Captain Marvel, or Spiderman; the latter cast of ultra characters, unfortunately, for moral society, are not able, analogously, to find the portal leading to a mixed media reality.

The justice-restoring, declaredly, non-fictional,” Super-Hero,” available to restore justice, societal health, and morality to Gotham City, in the non-fictional world of reality, is the conglomerate of informed and dedicated American citizens, without benefit of impressive stereotypical super-hero costumes, with the effective antidote as prescribed in their informed, constitutional franchise of the vote.

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