Michael Jochum

An avalanche of lies is burying this country in the putrid filth spewing out of the mouths and minds of Donald Trump and the Guardians of Pedophiles (GOP).

A Rapid Decline

Donald Trump is in visibly failing health, and the most obscene part of it is not the decline, it’s the lie. He presents himself as the healthiest 80-year-old in human history while his body tells a different, unavoidable story: the drooping face, the forward-leaning gait, the bruised hands that keep migrating from one limb to the other, the vacant stares, the disorientation, the public lapses into unconsciousness. Over the past year, he has fallen asleep, literally, during Cabinet meetings, military parades, high-level diplomatic encounters, even at the Pope’s funeral. Trump drifted in and out of a state of somnambulistic slumber during his own Big, Beautiful Board of Peace cosplay, during the “fertility” summit. It’s almost as if we have grown so accustomed to Trump nodding off at meetings, we pay little attention.

Meanwhile, the White House insists everything is “perfect.” His MRI scans are “perfect.” His cognition is “perfect.” His doctors are “amazed.” He claims they ask him how he knows so much about congestive heart failure. He says maybe he should have been a doctor instead of president. This is the same man who spent years branding Joe Biden as “Sleepy Joe,” turning aging and fatigue into a political cudgel, a chant, a slur. Now the emperor himself cannot remain conscious during his own press conferences. The hypocrisy is volcanic.

The MAGA machine demanded cognitive tests for Biden while their own rotting golden calf drifts off in daylight like a late-stage dementia patient in a nursing-home recliner. They worship him as an “alpha” while he cannot keep his eyes open long enough to hear a physician describe dementia. This is not leadership. This is not stability. This is not strength. This is a nation being steered by a man who cannot stay awake in the Oval Office.

His advisers admit there is nothing that angers him more than calls for the release of his medical records. He rages when anyone questions the obvious, because he knows what the cameras show, and so do we. The tragic comedy of this moment should not distract from the danger. A president who cannot remain alert during a briefing on healthcare is not merely embarrassing; he is unfit. A man who collapses onstage while his cult screams about strength is not a leader; he is a warning.

We don’t deserve an autocrat. We don’t deserve a king. And we sure as hell don’t deserve a president who can’t even hold his own head up. The republic is being crushed beneath the weight of a man who is physically, cognitively, and morally collapsing in public, and of the sycophants who would rather burn the country down than admit the truth.

Vote as if Donald Trump was on the ballot.

Michael Jochum — Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Music, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition.