Moral outrage is blank political ammo in 2026. Yet another New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, or The New Yorker cris de coeur won’t change a thing.The time for moral outrage and fear-driven cowardice is over. It is time to stand and be counted. Eric Hoffer put it best, “Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.”
"The people around the machine have interiors. The Senator who votes to confirm the Attorney General has an interior. The lawyer who signs the memo has an interior. The billionaire who buys the platform has an interior. The pastor who blesses the rally has an interior. Each of them is on a moral column. Each of them can go lower, and does. The proper subject of a “new low” sentence is any one of them."
The collaborators, the enablers? This is the group that should be suffering a lifetime of public shaming and explicit judgement until they die.
I've been using the metaphor of "great white shark" that swims, eats, and kills to live and lives in order to swim, eat, and kills. I like your "woodchipper" framing much better as it captures all the people that plug it in and feed it.
Trump's big thing is hearing the roar, feeling its vibration through his being. With it, he is alive, doing something of "consequence", dimming the yammering of the weaknesses and doubts that are the foundation of his narcissism. What is machined is of no consequence; to him, its only current purpose is to be machined.
"The wood-chipper does not need our moral condemnation. It needs a plug pulled. What needs our moral condemnation are the hands that keep plugging it back in..." 👊🏻
One correction, please. Susan Collins is not "horrified." She is, instead and as always, "very concerned." Either way, the point is correct that she is a critical force in promoting Trumpism even as she pretends to be a moderate. She only votes against her party when she knows that the party can win its vote without her.
The link from this sentence is broken:
"The object of the sentence is the collaborator at whose feet the arm now lies."
Let's be SPECIFIC. Trump is supposed to be the CIC, or Commander-in-Chief. What we have before us is the DIC, the Destroyer-in-Chief.
It is way past time when the mainstream media should have stopped their rationalization about what Trump does and instead focus on who and what Trump is.
TRUMP IS A FASCIST.
Trump relies on active mass mobilization, rallies, and fanatical popular devotion, and most of all on a despicable, unethical, and subservient Republican Congress. Shame on them.
Trump-GOP are driven by a strict ideology of national rebirth, supremacy, and cleansing. Read and/or listen to Project 2025. It goes by the name "Mandate for Leadership"
Trump-GOP subordinates the entire economy to the objectives of the state and military. How many billions of taxpayer dollars have now been spent on reckless ventures: Iran, ballroom, reflecting pool, ICE, DOGE, Air Force One? With those monies, important funding for child care, healthcare, infrastructure, climate-associated technology, etc could have been implemented.
Trump-GOP demands complete control over thoughts, culture, and daily life. We are getting there. Now ICE arresting, beating or killing those protesting against ICE.
How does AI view my comments as Trump and the Republican Congress are fascism in action. Here is the AI's "In favor":
Rhetoric and Scapegoating: Critics point to language that portrays the nation as in apocalyptic decline, frames political opponents as "vermin" or "enemies from within," and casts immigrants as a threat to national purity.
The "Savior" Complex: Analysts highlight statements where Trump positions himself as the ultimate authority figure (e.g., his 2016 declaration, "I alone can fix it") and his challenges to democratic pillars like independent courts, free press, and election results.
Cult of Personality: Historians note how the movement emphasizes absolute personal loyalty to a single leader over traditional institutional rules or party platforms.
What we ALL are WITNESS to is a gradual, systemic erosion rather than a sudden overnight coup. Democratic backsliding occurs incrementally, where laws and institutions are systematically hollowed out from within until the public realizes too late that the democratic structure no longer functions.
WAKE UP AMERICA. We have Putin in the Oval Office but he speaks English. Trump and the Republican Party do not care a rat's ass about Americans. This is a power grab. This is their "GOD" ⇢ Greed over God, and with our psycho POTUS it is manifest as GOLD over God, and Goodness.
Trump's next move is to invalidate or prevent the midterms. How can so many be so blind.
“The wood-chipper does not need our moral condemnation. It needs a plug pulled. What needs our moral condemnation are the hands that keep plugging it back in, and the columnists who keep describing the noise as if it were an argument.”
You’re right, of course; Trump doesn’t have an interior, and he operates as if he is a machine. My problem with the analogy—and your argument—is that he is morally responsible for that lack. “As if”—als ob. He is not literally a machine; he is a defective human, and ultimately he is responsible for whatever deficits of personality and character that led to this. Understanding his negligence does not excuse it; for not doing something right, when you could have and should have, can have as much moral—and legal—weight as actively intending wrongdoing. Trump is guilty of negligence; a malignant negligence that has caused immense damage to the country as a whole and its institutions, as well as suffering, loss, and even death of individuals. He can and must be held accountable even if what he does now is eminently predictable.
Moral outrage is blank political ammo in 2026. Yet another New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, or The New Yorker cris de coeur won’t change a thing.The time for moral outrage and fear-driven cowardice is over. It is time to stand and be counted. Eric Hoffer put it best, “Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.”
"The people around the machine have interiors. The Senator who votes to confirm the Attorney General has an interior. The lawyer who signs the memo has an interior. The billionaire who buys the platform has an interior. The pastor who blesses the rally has an interior. Each of them is on a moral column. Each of them can go lower, and does. The proper subject of a “new low” sentence is any one of them."
The collaborators, the enablers? This is the group that should be suffering a lifetime of public shaming and explicit judgement until they die.
I've been using the metaphor of "great white shark" that swims, eats, and kills to live and lives in order to swim, eat, and kills. I like your "woodchipper" framing much better as it captures all the people that plug it in and feed it.
Trump's big thing is hearing the roar, feeling its vibration through his being. With it, he is alive, doing something of "consequence", dimming the yammering of the weaknesses and doubts that are the foundation of his narcissism. What is machined is of no consequence; to him, its only current purpose is to be machined.
"The wood-chipper does not need our moral condemnation. It needs a plug pulled. What needs our moral condemnation are the hands that keep plugging it back in..." 👊🏻
One correction, please. Susan Collins is not "horrified." She is, instead and as always, "very concerned." Either way, the point is correct that she is a critical force in promoting Trumpism even as she pretends to be a moderate. She only votes against her party when she knows that the party can win its vote without her.
The link from this sentence is broken:
"The object of the sentence is the collaborator at whose feet the arm now lies."
Fantastic and useful metaphor.
Let's be SPECIFIC. Trump is supposed to be the CIC, or Commander-in-Chief. What we have before us is the DIC, the Destroyer-in-Chief.
It is way past time when the mainstream media should have stopped their rationalization about what Trump does and instead focus on who and what Trump is.
TRUMP IS A FASCIST.
Trump relies on active mass mobilization, rallies, and fanatical popular devotion, and most of all on a despicable, unethical, and subservient Republican Congress. Shame on them.
Trump-GOP are driven by a strict ideology of national rebirth, supremacy, and cleansing. Read and/or listen to Project 2025. It goes by the name "Mandate for Leadership"
Trump-GOP subordinates the entire economy to the objectives of the state and military. How many billions of taxpayer dollars have now been spent on reckless ventures: Iran, ballroom, reflecting pool, ICE, DOGE, Air Force One? With those monies, important funding for child care, healthcare, infrastructure, climate-associated technology, etc could have been implemented.
Trump-GOP demands complete control over thoughts, culture, and daily life. We are getting there. Now ICE arresting, beating or killing those protesting against ICE.
How does AI view my comments as Trump and the Republican Congress are fascism in action. Here is the AI's "In favor":
Rhetoric and Scapegoating: Critics point to language that portrays the nation as in apocalyptic decline, frames political opponents as "vermin" or "enemies from within," and casts immigrants as a threat to national purity.
The "Savior" Complex: Analysts highlight statements where Trump positions himself as the ultimate authority figure (e.g., his 2016 declaration, "I alone can fix it") and his challenges to democratic pillars like independent courts, free press, and election results.
Cult of Personality: Historians note how the movement emphasizes absolute personal loyalty to a single leader over traditional institutional rules or party platforms.
What we ALL are WITNESS to is a gradual, systemic erosion rather than a sudden overnight coup. Democratic backsliding occurs incrementally, where laws and institutions are systematically hollowed out from within until the public realizes too late that the democratic structure no longer functions.
WAKE UP AMERICA. We have Putin in the Oval Office but he speaks English. Trump and the Republican Party do not care a rat's ass about Americans. This is a power grab. This is their "GOD" ⇢ Greed over God, and with our psycho POTUS it is manifest as GOLD over God, and Goodness.
Trump's next move is to invalidate or prevent the midterms. How can so many be so blind.
Eww. Now I have images more unpleasant than losing an arm to a wood chipper in my head. Thanks. 🤢
The corporate media reports the "new lows" as Trump's, but in fact the new lows belong to the corporate media, who are among the complicit.
That's why they are incapable of honest reporting.
“The wood-chipper does not need our moral condemnation. It needs a plug pulled. What needs our moral condemnation are the hands that keep plugging it back in, and the columnists who keep describing the noise as if it were an argument.”
You’re right, of course; Trump doesn’t have an interior, and he operates as if he is a machine. My problem with the analogy—and your argument—is that he is morally responsible for that lack. “As if”—als ob. He is not literally a machine; he is a defective human, and ultimately he is responsible for whatever deficits of personality and character that led to this. Understanding his negligence does not excuse it; for not doing something right, when you could have and should have, can have as much moral—and legal—weight as actively intending wrongdoing. Trump is guilty of negligence; a malignant negligence that has caused immense damage to the country as a whole and its institutions, as well as suffering, loss, and even death of individuals. He can and must be held accountable even if what he does now is eminently predictable.
Brilliant reframe!
"collaborator" is hyper-deadlinked.
Exactly
When I think of "Trump" and "wood chipper", it is not in the sense of them being synonymous.
Why not call him a crocodile as I do? This is, after all, the children’s story of the crocodile and the frog.