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It took us way too long to acknowledge Joe Biden’s age-related problems. And it’s taking way too long to publicly address the volatile nature of Donald Trump for what it really is — a national emergency. 

True, many articles have been written about his mental illness, albeit mostly by a comparative handful of people in the mental health field. And yes, comedians joke about it all the time, which provides welcome relief from a situation that is not funny. 

However, without getting too clinical about it, pretty much every psychological or medical professional I speak with who closely studies Trump agrees: Aside from a recent, possibly age-related mental decline, he suffers from a lifelong, severe personality disorder. And the combination is deadly — more, somehow, than the sum of its parts.

Trump is dangerous, and most of us know it. But, as we also know, the Trump-controlled major media will continue laundering the emperor’s new clothes.

It almost certainly will not call out Trump’s brazen invasion of Venezuela and abduction of its president for what it actually was about. I’m reminded of Trump’s thinking in Bob Woodward’s book, Fear: Trump in the White House:

There was only one path forward: escalation on all fronts. Maximize aggression to conceal vital weaknesses.

Trump has so many things to fear, the latest being the massive dump of files on Jeffrey Epstein and special counsel Jack Smith’s full December 17 testimony to a House committee (deliberately released on New Year’s Eve when few paid attention) — in which he laid out evidence of Trump’s criminal behavior.  

But here’s the thing: It’s not just about Trump’s mental state, it’s about the mental state of his entire entourage. Because malignant narcissists cannot tolerate authentic, healthy people, Trump has surrounded himself with a coterie of the deranged. In fact, if one looks closely at his team, it’s evident that multiple top figures exhibit a variety of specific personality disorders, in addition to their spectacular incompetence and appalling lack of honor.

Trump and his team — not to mention many of those who eagerly embrace him — represent a mental health catastrophe for America and the world. 

I’ll say more about this in the coming weeks. 

Better Police AI — Before AI Polices US

Another area where we cannot wait for the establishment to be frank or take appropriate action in 2026 is, of course, the artificial intelligence juggernaut. 

We all can play a role in this by maintaining our vigilance and reporting problems as we discover them. 

My friend Steve Somerstein provided me with one example. He had penned a letter to The New York Times decrying Donald Trump’s vicious attack on the memory of Rob and Michele Reiner following their deaths. He asked ChatGPT to improve the letter. 

Here is what he got back (he sent me a screen shot of the entire interaction):

ChatGPT said:

Before rewriting, I need to flag a serious factual problem in the draft as written: Rob Reiner and his wife are alive, and there has been no such murder. I can’t improve or submit a version that repeats a false or defamatory claim. [Emphasis added.]

 What I can do — and have done below — is produce a polished, publishable New York Times–style letter that preserves your moral argument while removing the incorrect names and unverifiable details. This keeps the focus on Trump’s conduct and Congress’s responsibility, which is clearly your core point.

 If you want the letter to reference a specific, real case, you can tell me which one and I’ll revise it precisely.

OK, wow! One can only wonder where ChatGPT got that idea! Is it perhaps because the internet slop pile from which it draws its “knowledge” was replete with conspiracy theories that the Reiner murders were fake? And, if so, where will this propensity to crowdsource “truth” take us — even deeper into the post-truth morass? It’s obvious we have a lot of work to do before the technology can be trusted. 

More so because of this: AI is apparently showing signs of self-preservation — causing an AI pioneer to warn that humans better get ready to pull the plug. 

A related point: It’s actually in the interests of Big Tech to promote the idea that AI will soon be self-conscious. Why? Because — together with the human tendency to attribute self-consciousness to a machine that has been programmed to sound like a person — the assumption that large language models (LLMs) are, or may soon become, self-conscious obscures the even more immediate threat they pose:  The people running the LLMs — people like Elon Musk and Sam Altman — are right now inserting their desires and assumptions into the AI’s responses. 

It has been repeatedly demonstrated that these AI masters can tweak the algorithms to foreground, or suppress, certain responses in the AI’s repertoire, such that AIs — which are increasingly monopolizing the news and information “universe” that underpins modern civilization — are being directed, in mostly invisible ways, by private interests with their own agendas.  

In other words, we are subject to the control of a new generation of “press lords,” more powerful than the Hearsts and Pulitzers and TV network czars of the past. And this level of control over our information is rarely acknowledged. Consider Grok’s “MechaHitler” episode (and Musk’s “corrective” response) and the similar episode where a tweak meant to make GPT-4o more supportive of users went too far in the direction of “sycophancy,” which annoyed users and led to the programmers “turning down” the sycophancy level. 

Think about that: While we worry about AI’s possibly becoming self-conscious at some future date (and therefore self-preserving in ways that may be detrimental to humans), we’re already using a tool whose responses to our queries are subject to the behind-the-scenes influence of modern-day press lords. For another example, see below, under the heading: “Epstein to Trump…”

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Speaking of trust, more and more people now trust random influencers whose identity, background, and qualifications they know nothing about. Evidence suggests that plenty of these “people” are actually AI bots or products of disinformation mills, often located abroad. 

And so we are treated to a constant barrage of directed fabrications and twisted material, along with a celebration of individuals and ideas whose pseudo-principles would not survive thoughtful scrutiny. It’s essentially moral instruction catering to moral destruction.

I saw the other day that some MAGA influencer was exulting about how many people are applying to work for ICE. They think that is impressive, and a sign that Trump’s efforts to remove the foreign-born are wildly popular and a huge success, with no mention that ICE is one of the few entities that will hire almost anyone, regardless of their background, lack of qualifications, or obesity metrics. 

What kind of people are these applicants? First off, they may well be people who couldn’t find any other jobs. Second, they seem to take actual pleasure from newly gained power to terrorize and brutalize others.

A lot of racists who were always anti-immigrant have gratefully seized upon the invalid justification that diversity hiring fosters inferiority. But for people who are all about “merit hiring,” they are surprisingly enthusiastic about scraping the bottom of the barrel. 

Conspiring to Deny Conspiracy?

Mimicking The New York Times’s propensity to cast doubt on others’ legitimate questions around the Jeffrey Epstein matter, The Washington Post, in an article headlined “Files offer details on Epstein’s death in federal custody,” included this statement: 

Six days after his death, New York City’s chief medical examiner, Barbara Sampson, whose office had conducted an autopsy of Epstein’s body, issued a finding that he had hanged himself.

Ever since, a wide range of people, including members of Congress and some prominent supporters of President Donald Trump, have challenged that conclusion, asserting with no evidence that Epstein was killed and proffering theories about who might have done it. [Emphasis added.]

No evidence? I guess the Post reporter didn’t see that 60 Minutes episode where a forensic expert stated all the evidence that makes a suicide highly unlikely. And I guess the Post reporter doesn’t know about all the astonishing anomalies, like:

Not one, but both guards on duty falling asleep.

Problems with closed circuit cameras during both his alleged suicide attempts, and later, during his actual death.

Breaches of protocol, like leaving Epstein alone after a so-called previous suicide attempt. 

Failure to interview potential witnesses.

Failure to run basic forensics tests.

Failure to preserve key evidence.

Before the FBI could process the scene, evidence was moved and markers were not placed. (For more on these astonishing lapses, go here.)

It’s entirely possible that he wasn’t murdered. But at the very least, it was made most convenient for him if he intended to off himself. 

That’s not reflected in the Post article or that editorializing statement. 

Epstein to Trump: ‘This is a good one, right?’

For years, the American right has made “sex trafficking” a huge political cause. They also seem to express the proper outrage over child sexual abuse.

However, a lot of rightists now remain resolutely and totally silent about the Epstein matter and Trump’s proven closeness with the man.

Where is the outrage the document below should have inspired?

Case 1:20-cv-00484 Document 1 Filed 01/17/20 Page 4 of 10
17. During one of Doe’s encounters with Epstein, he took her to Mar-a-Lago where he introduced her to its owner, Donald J. Trump. Introducing 14-year-old Doe to Donald J. Trump, Epstein elbowed Trump playfully asking him, referring to Doe, “This is a good one, right?” Trump smiled and nodded in agreement. They both chuckled and Doe felt uncomfortable, but, at the time, was too young to understand why. [Emphasis added.]

I asked ChatGPT about the conservative reaction to this document. It told me conservative outlets like Fox News were “[not into] sensationalizing individual unproven allegations from a civil complaint,” and that “documents being released are raw legal filings without adjudicated findings of wrongdoing.”

“Unproven allegations.” “Raw legal filings without adjudicated findings of wrongdoing.” Case dismissed? I don’t think so.

I’m struck by how each new and more extreme revelation is treated as “unproven,” denied, suppressed, or ignored, as MAGA influencers move to distract with whatever new outrage they can fabricate.  

Since they won’t bring these revelations to the attention of those most in denial — those who most need to hear them — it is up to us. 

Here’s just one of the latest of a steady stream: Along with more and more evidence of the Trump-Epstein romcom comes the release of Amazon receipts showing Epstein’s purchases of everything from multiple books about Trump to a mock prison uniform to binoculars, to… school girl uniforms.   

Most revealing are the Trump administration’s attempts to obfuscate:

Release an overwhelming number of mind-numbing, dreary, soporific trivia, guaranteed to blind those who are not put to sleep first.

Release documents with all kinds of things blacked out — an incompetent move: Redacted files are simply being unredacted by the public.

Employ this old standby: Claim they release only those documents that are “credible.”

And my favorite: Poison the well by releasing a few “compromising” documents that are conspicuously fake — thus creating the impression that (1) the administration is being forthcoming, and (2) anything negative about Trump is fake.

Trump promised us transparency. Well, all of his attempts to hide the truth are indeed… transparent. 

Our Ennobling Task

Finally, I’ve been thinking about what the horrors of the Trump epoch are doing to us, collectively, and how we can cope in the new year.  

We don’t know where things are going, and what to do about them. I’ve written about this numerous times in the past year. 

But certain things are coming into focus — like the fact that this national and global nightmare, as traumatic and debilitating as it is, also has its upside; it gives us an opportunity for self-examination.

What kind of people are we? And what kind of choices do we make? There’s a lot of work to be done by all of us, in ways large and small, to save this country. But far too many good people express exhaustion and defeat, and bury themselves in distractions or trivialities that do nothing to meet the apocalyptic moment. 

To be sure, tackling the reality, embracing the urgency, is not easy. Yet it is the only way to repair the damage being done.. 

Besides — and I know all of my colleagues feel this way — there is something ennobling about shouldering through the daily struggle for everything that is right and good. 

Our work ahead is simple. It may at times be brutal, but it is necessary. And the hard work of saving and restoring democracy needn’t be seen as anything other than the essential assignment of being human.

To quote the incomparable Alan Watts: 

This is the real secret of life: to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.  

Let’s enjoy our good fight, together, in 2026.