Poetry Break

It was a short week. And between fewer days to write and the ceaseless cavalcade of psychotic behavior flowing from the White House, I simply didn’t have the time or endurance to create a new post that catalogues the latest monstrosity plaguing our nation.

So instead, I have fallen back on an old favorite. Here again is a found poem constructed of real-life headers of IMDB critiques of the last ten movies I have watched. Enjoy.

Rotting flesh and worms replace the pumpkin carriage

Teeth claws and a moral message

The mothballs of memory

Loneliness in the void

Beautiful deep painful rage

A tantalizing theological tangle with a hollow core

Pure demonstration of a hardcore sociopath

That damn smiling monkey

It exists, then it doesn’t

Like my unfinished dream

Here are the movies (in poem order)

The Ugly Stepsister 

Jurassic Park

Blue Jay

Companion

Blink Twice

Heretic

Unknown caller

The Monkey

Bad Guys 2

Flow

The Wonders of Technology

Like many of you, I use generative AI for work and, occasionally, for abstract musings that serve to distract from the creeping, shuddering collapse of America that is happening right before our horrified eyes.

Hey, if you have a sudden urge to write a haiku about existential angst or draw, say, a distinctly split composition that portrays the last man on Earth surveying the aftermath of civilization in bold, contrasting areas that highlight the devastation and the figure's isolation — but you don’t have the time, energy, or talent to create those things yourself, well, AI is the tool for you.

I recently asked AI to tackle a task that has been gnawing away at me for a while. I will now share my results with you. Here is the conversation between AI and me:

Prompt: Create a name for a new emotion that addresses our culture's current climate of fear, ignorance, hatred, and paranoia. This new emotion is a negative one but applicable to millions of Americans.

ChatGPT response:

Emotion name: Dreadrage

Definition: Dreadrage (noun) — a corrosive emotional state blending chronic fear, ignorant certainty, hatred of the "other," and simmering paranoia. It's the feeling of being constantly under threat—real or imagined—combined with the belief that someone or something must be to blame. It manifests as a reactive, defensive mindset that feeds on misinformation, tribalism, and cultural division.

Why dreadrage fits:

• "Dread" captures the looming, existential anxiety many people feel—about the future, society, or perceived enemies.
• "Rage" reflects how that anxiety often twists into anger or hatred, especially when fueled by divisive narratives or echo chambers.
• The word feels heavy and raw—matching the emotion itself.

Contextual use:

“You can feel the dreadrage in the room—everyone’s on edge, suspicious, and just waiting for something to go wrong.”

“He’s not even angry about something specific anymore. It’s just dreadrage—constant, directionless hostility.”

OK, I have to admit that dreadrage is a pretty cool word. Yes, it sounds metal as hell, but beyond the aesthetics, it encapsulates the emotions that have consumed and pummeled many of us for all of 2025.

So will “dreadrage” become the new catchphrase for this time of unfathomable chaos? Here’s hoping. If you catch me dropping this term oh so casually into conversation, know that it is intentional.

This is the word of the year and for our age, and we have AI to thank for it.

Of course, the rapid, sometimes disconcerting rise of AI is one of the root stresses that plagues our every waking moment, so it’s only fitting that ChatGPT helps us out here.

Welcome the era of dreadrage.

Faith in the Darndest Things

Quick quiz: Who is the most dangerous man in America?

You thought I would say Trump, right?

While I wouldn’t argue with anyone who sees our mad emperor as the biggest threat to our country, our planet, and possibly life on Earth, my nominee for the man most likely to kill us all is that rapscallion of the Kennedy clan, Mr. RFK Jr.

You see, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services is trying to end vaccines, weakening public health infrastructure, firing health experts who actually know what they’re talking about, cancelling scientific research that could save millions, and spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories that will eventually lead to Americans chugging vitamins and gurgling bleach instead of getting vaccinated. I wouldn’t be surprised if he outlawed chemotherapy for cancer patients in favor of dousing them in essential oils. 

Kennedy’s idiotic whims and hostility to science will straight-up kill people. But he is symptomatic of two of the Trump administration’s chief characteristics. 

The first is aggression toward expertise, logic, facts, or data. The monumental hubris of conservatives comes out as attacks on those fancy-pants eggheads who study things and learn things and base their conclusions on anything other than the Bible, Trump, or own made-up theories that a 10-year-old could disprove with two minutes of Google searching.

In particular, the Republican hatred of science is well-established. This is part of the larger trend of anti-science mysticismenabling autocracy around the world. Millions of supposedly rational conservatives would rather believe a babbling conman with a messiah complex over decades of scientific research. This ignorance and anger will soon cause the American scientific and technological empire to collapse.

The second “theme that unites Trump’s inept handling of deportations, his trampling on human and civil rights, his rejection of the rule of law, his dictatorial centralization of power, and his utterly inept handling of the economy is the ineptness itself.”

The problem is that Trump “has the attention span of a fruit fly,” which is “causing chaos across the federal government, as rival sycophants compete for his limited attention.”

The result is that no one is in charge, and the Trump administration is “coming apart, [and] incompetence is everywhere.” The administration can’t keep military secrets, maintain financial stability, or protect children from measles. In essence, Trump “cannot protect America.”

But hey, at least red dye is banned. So as our economy nosedives and masked fascists rampage through the streets and we die of preventable diseases, we can take great comfort in that.

Update on That Golden Age

Here’s a little factoid that Americans never remember: the highest murder rate in U.S. history was in 1980. And for most of Ronald Reagan’s first term, the homicide rate was astronomical. That’s right — more Americans were murdered during the sainted Republican’s reign than at any other time in recorded history.

Many of those deaths were among inner-city blacks and Latinos. As such, the Reagan administration didn’t give half a fuck, which is why so many people at the time (and to this day) thought that the 1980s were a carefree and innocent era.

In actuality, that decade sucked.

Back in the 1980s, no president was going to deploy the military to prevent the homicide of ethnic minorities. But in our current state of perpetual hysteria and autocratic desire, one white guy getting mugged is justification to call in the National Guard.

This histrionic and dictatorial maneuver is part fever dream of the right wing, part attack on Democratic-led cities, and part distraction from the Epstein files.

In no way does it actually help any Americans.

By now, we were all supposed to be living in the Golden Age of Trumpian prosperity. Instead, recession warning signs are flashing, and Americans are losing their health care. The grim forecasts on the economy can only be forestalled by killing the messenger, and swing voters who based their decision on the price of eggs are wondering if maybe, just maybe, they fucked up. 

Even conservatives are acknowledging that blue-collar people are getting screwed over more than ever, and red-state Trump fans are losing their jobs at a furious rate.

But don’t worry, billionaires are making more money than seemed possible, jackbooted thugs are terrorizing ethnic minorities, and neofascist whites-only communities are springing up with increasing frequency.

So for oligarchs, bigots, and lovers of chaos, this truly is the Golden Age.

The Long Slide Down

Politicians have long employed vivid metaphors to explain how they envision America’s future. Maybe it’s a New Deal or a Great Society or a shining city on a hill.

But according to our friends in the Republican Party, our country’s future can be summed up in the phrase “serf city.”

You see, conservatives see Hungary as the model for America. This is because they love its leader, Viktor Orbán, “a small-time autocrat who has impoverished his country… while enriching his family and friends.” In turn, Orbán and other autocrats love “Americans who have broken the law, gone to jail, stolen from their own charities, or harassed women.” 

Hungary is now the poorest nation in the European Union, and the government oppresses the shit out of anyone who isn’t a straight Christian (so you see the appeal to Republicans).

It’s a bizarre role model for the world’s most powerful country to emulate. But that’s the direction in which we are headed, because the current occupant of the White House “has grown more impulsive, more vindictive, and more anarchic” while pursuing his “witless, incoherent, and incompetently executed policies.” The truth is that “if the behavior that this administration has exhibited in just its first six months continues and is amplified for its full four years, the America you know will be gone.”

We will be Hungary, just larger and with fatter people.

What can we do about this slide into oligarchal incompetence? Apparently, not much.

As our befuddled, furious, demented president “takes a sledgehammer to the rule of law, intimidates and bullies those who stand in his way, hacks away at press freedoms, guts government agencies, and continues to demonize those whom he sees as ‘woke,’ who will dare to stand in his way?”

His hardcore supporters will love him no matter what. This is because devoted right-wingers are often “abused people who identify with power so they’ll never be hurt again.” Their approach to a wannabe strongman is “Big Daddy will protect me so that I’ll never be hurt again, like I was hurt by my real daddy.” Such zealous Trumpers “attack vulnerable people because they hate their own vulnerability.”

So don’t count on angry people who have voted for Trump three times to reign in a guy who is “going to war against America” itself.

We are suffering through a rapidly escalating series of “moments where malignant normality… somehow keeps getting worse as the country collapses into autocracy and authoritarianism.”

America is in a horrific situation where if Trump fails, “then we all do.” But if he’s successful, “our republic fails. That’s the historic situation we find ourselves in.”

Damn. 

I hope you like Hungarian goulash.