Trump is right, the midterms are about him, but not for why he thinks it is.
Trump believes he’s doing a fantastic job. He gave a speech at the United Nations this week full of many of the same lies, exaggerations, and misinformation that he claimed before. As before, factcheckers went through it and corrected the record for us.
The midterms are about Trump because many of We the People want control wrested away from him. He’s made many unpopular moves. Biggest ones are probably not lowering prices, not releasing the Epstein files, and starting the war in Iran.
Trump promised no new wars and lower prices when he was campaigning in 2024. Instead, he started a war and raised prices via tariffs, policy decisions, and yes, war. Now, as the midterms play out, an increasing number of Republicans are shying away from appearances with Trump and his endorsements — or that of his surrogates, like JD Vance. In multiple races, Republicans who stood with Trump are trying to pretend they don’t know him.
And MAGA is also slowly abandoning Trump, according to an analysis in a Wall Street Journal article.
MAGA podcasters are tuning out Trump. We tracked what they are talking about now.
To quote the article, “But MAGA podcasters aren’t playing along. Mentions of Trump’s name per hour on conservative podcasts have fallen nearly 70% from their peak in the run-up to the 2024 election.”
The WSJ article noted that the downturn in Trump mentions sharply coincides with when Trump began the Iran war in February, 2026.
Reading Leaving MAGA confessions, many of them slowly realized that Trump and the right-wing media was lying to them. It didn’t automatically drive them toward the Democrats, and I understand that. The Democrats are also far from being the party I desire. My request for term limits, dark money, and PAC participation include Democrats.
Nor does all this mean that Trump is going away soon, nor easily. If the GOP loses the House, Senate or both in the midterms, Trump will ramp up his war on democracy in America. He will be angrier, more bellicose, more erratic, and he will lie more.
We’ve all seen it before. It’s really more about how much do we trust, remember, and believe?
Ashland, southern Oregon. Tuesday, September 22, 2026.
First day of fall today in the northern latitudes. Autumn and summer have been fluttering in and out for the past few weeks. Leaves are rushing to change colors in some parts of the city. Other leaves are like, nah, not yet.
Temperature today will rise to 75 degrees from its current level of 61 F. Rain showers are considered possible though in my view out the window, the clouds aren’t the rain kind. They’re just thin, wispy white paste.
Mom asked my sister Gina to let her move back in with her. Mom insisted, she would never go upstairs and Pat, Gina’s husband, would not be allowed within six feet of Mom.
Of course, Gina said, no. Pat never did anything to Mom; we have video footage proving so. Mom was hallucinating, a combo of pain pills, other medication, and UTIs. But she insists that what Pat did was real. Guess it was, to her.
The White House has announced “Trump TV”. I laughed and shook my head at that.
It’s showing clips of Trump speeches. Trump thinks himself a great orator but he’s a terrible, stumbling speaker who doesn’t stay on topic. The clips will reveal this, reminding people of Trump’s grandiose promises about greatness, lies about his accomplishments, falling prices, refund and dividend checks, and how we won in Iran as the war continues seven months later. Trump is failing and falling in approval and popularity as a result.
I have spent time reading “Leaving MAGA” over the past two days. Started by a former MAGAzen, Rich Logis, a few years ago, this is a place where Trump supporters reveal what finally broke their willingness to support Trump. They’re not monolithic but very individual stories, although they often show common threads. Most stories tell of their slow spiral into anger, disillusionment, and conspiracy theories. They end up supporting Trump because they’re hoping for change. Then they begin to notice his inconsistencies and the scales fall from their eyes.
For example, Erica Roach:
“A doctored video circulated that made it seem as if Gates was saying he could kill more people with better vaccines.
“Then Trump played up Operation Warp Speed, which led to the creation of the COVID vaccine. He called himself the father of the vaccine. He said he had saved millions of lives. That didn’t make sense to me.
“I started doing a bunch of research in the White House archive; I found Trump executive orders, including one setting up a national influenza vaccine task force. I learned that Trump had asked Bill Gates to be the White House science advisor.
“This all upset me terribly; Q had said Trump knew about the 16-year plan to destroy America, so why was he backing what I believed to be a depopulation tool?
Trump often tries to play both sides of the field simultaneously when making claims. For instance, when running for re-election in 2020, Trump claimed that the Democrat’s characterization of the coronavirus as a “hoax”.
Then Trump ran for re-election in 2024 and hammered President Biden’s economy, especially inflation. After Trump returned to the Oval Office, he dismissed affordability as a Democratic hoax.
When Trump ran for office in 2024, he warned that Democrats would begin new wars. Then he promised no new wars, and then attacked Iran — twice, in 2025, and 2026. We remain at war with Iran seven months after Trump initiated the attacks on Iran. He tries to sell the softer term, ‘conflict’, but has also notably referred to it as a war.
Most of the US caught on to Trump’s Double Standards, outright lying, and rhetorical flexibility long ago. I’m happy that some MAGAzens are also waking up.
Today’s music is “Catch Me Now I’m Falling” by the Kinks. When I first heard the song on their live album, I thought, oh, the Kinks have done a “Jumping Jack Flash” cover.
I was wrong. While it often sounds like that Stones song, this song was written about the United States needing help back in 1979. Took me a while to decode the lyrics back then. When I finally did, I was like, whaaat?
Sample Lyrics
Now I’m calling all citizens from all over the world This is captain America calling I bailed you out when you were down on your knees So will you catch me now I’m falling
Help me now I’m calling you Catch me now I’m falling I’m in your hands, it’s up to you Catch me now I’m falling
I remember when you were down You would always come running to me I never denied you and I would guide you Through all of your difficulties
I thought of the song today because of our nation’s fluctuations in fortune. Davis wrote and sang about America needing help in the last century, how America used to reach out and help others. In the Trump era, the US has been withdrawing and reducing help. Instead, Trump uses economic clout and military threat to bludgeon others. Hasn’t been working well, with disastrous results for the US and its allies.
I hope you enjoy the first day of whatever season this day is for you, that it makes you smile now and look back later, and smile again.
It’s another week of surreal comparisons and Trump thinking.
And it’s only Monday!
Trump believes there’s one rule for him while another one for everyone else. That’s the bedrock foundation of Trump Double Standards.
Trump frequently mocks other people, shouts at them, insults them, and calls them names. Yet he becomes so HUUUGELY UPSET whenever someone writes the truth about him.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
That was Trump this week, September, 2026.
Trump went on about fake news…”something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America.”
Wow, it’s almost like he’s talking about himself. Trump is the cancer not just on our nation, but on intelligence, decency, and humanity.
That, plus lying, breaking promises, grifting, and destroying national monuments and trying to aggrandize himself, will be the Trump Legacy.
I also believe that Trump lies quite deliberately and goes on these rants to distract people from his many failures and prop himself up as a ‘strong man’. He weaves a destruction of chaos, pathos, and confusion. It’s all part of Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!
That’s why he tore down the White House East Wing, screwed up the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, attacked Iran, has fishing boats destroyed and their occupants killed, is threatening to demolish the Kennedy Center, keeps demanding that he be given the Nobel Peace Prize, demanding he be added to Mount Rushmore, and pretends he isn’t in the Epstein files. Trump wants us to forget about rising gas and diesel prices (now at $7 per gallon in places), the rising cost of food, climate change, and increasing personal bankruptcies. Trump wants us not to think about the plight of the farmers, the ongoing rural hospital crisis, AI and data centers construction, or the measles outbreaks (3,471 cases in the US, the worse since 1991).
Trump wants to distract us from all the other things Trump is doing.
After I wrote about Trump’s plan to militarize the arch he’s building to memorialize him, Nan pointed out one of the follies of arming it and then bragging that he wants to militarize it.
“What I find rather fascinating is Trump’s pompous bragging about how this new arch will be “war-ready.” Obviously he doesn’t have a clue that this very bragging is what will motivate enemies to target the structure should they at any time decide to strike the U.S.”
That’s all very true. Trump’s plan also highlights his shallow thinking. He’s fixated on drones now because of the Ukraine-Russia war (the one he said he’d end on day 1) and the Iran war Trump started seven months ago (the one he said was already over or close to winning over twenty times). Drones are playing prominently in those wars.
In establishing a target like the arch, though, Trump is overlooking a multitude of other weapons capable of taking out that arch. Trump should know about them because we just sold some to Israel, and we’ve been using them in Iran.
But that’s Trump, three steps behind, and mad as hell about it.
Ashland, southern Oregon. Sunday, September 20, 2026.
We’re sitting on the cusp of autumn at 78 F, anticipating a rise to 90 F, so sunny and blue that you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s the middle of summer.
But the changing leaves on the trees defy that assessment. And the night temperatures have been coming down…cooler…cooler.
Sunset comes more quickly, and sunrise seems to lag.
It’s summer’s end, autumn’s beginning.
Seasons don’t slow Trump down! First, he tells us that he’s built the world’s greatest military, seizing all the credit, as though he conceived and built everything while selecting and training every soldier, marine, sailor, and airman.
Then, while building the White House ballroom on the site of the East Wing that he illegally tore down, he embellished his ballroom dream, declaring it would be ‘drone-proof’ with a drone port, a military installation with snipers.
Now Trump is saying the same thing about the new Arch he wants built.
Trump says new arch will also deploy drones, position snipers and store ammo
Who are all these invaders Trump is fearing that he’s obsessed with adding snipers to everything he builds?
Well, wiser heads suggest that Trump is pitching the security angle because the beautification scam isn’t working any longer.
More cynical people like me like me believe that it’s a three-prong attack on common sense and decency. The reasons include both of the previous reasons, but it’s also another distraction as part of Operation Epic LOOK SQUIRREL!
Trump using the security angle for the arch does make sense; when courts heard about ‘security concerns’ after the Epstein ballroom construction had been halted, they yielded to Trump.
He is ridiculous. So are his supporters, especially those zealots, the MAGAzens.
All this Trump thinking about wars, guns, and shooting provoked Les Neurons to bring JoJo Gunne into the morning mental music stream. The band was named after a Chuck Berry song and the song came out in 1972. No much to the lyrics, to be honest, but it’s upbeat and easy to sing along with.
I hope this is a good day for you, using whatever metrics are meaningful to your life.
Ashland, southern Oregon.Saturday, September 19, 2026.
Summer is serving up a last hurrah, taking us into the high 80s today and low 90s tomorrow. Sunshine crowns the multi-colored trees and serves up against a deep blue sky.
I’m going to pass on writing about Trump and politics today, so it’ll be a short post.
Today’s music is “Talk of the Town”. It’s in the morning mental music stream after friends and I were talking about the plight of the bears here in southern Oregon. “Talk of the Town” is a 1980 song by the Pretenders. If I was writing about the current national situation, it would be a good song for today.
Sample Lyrics
The rules and such never bothered you You call the shots and they follow
May this day and every day find you safe, free, healthy and happy.
Trump continues on his confrontational, authoritarian path.
Trump believes that because he is the current White House occupant, he owns everything and can do anything. Unfortunately for us, Congress and the Roberts Court were eager to abet Trump’s attitude that he is above the law.
Trump thinks he can sign an executive order and change everything. He and his advisors have observed that breaking the law first and then letting others try to stop you through legal means worked for bank robbers, kidnappers, rapists, and murderers, so they’ve decided to govern through the same tactic.
All my fresh Saturday morning contempt for Trump was triggered by this Trump joke.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Donald Trump was supposed to be joking. His joke shows that he doesn’t understand how the office is supposed to work, or the limits of his power. No, he can’t do what he claims he can. That wouldn’t stop him from trying. Then, as with other things, like tariffs, voting suppression, freedom of speech, war, We the People and our servants would need to fight Trump in court.
We can tell that this was posed as another Trump joke veiling the truth because the megalomaniac just tried banning reporters from MS Now, CNN, and Politico. Banning reporters for personal reasons from entering the White House has been ruled on several times before.
Trump, though, always thinks himself above the law.
Time again for more Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!
You can tell things are going bad for Trump because he felt a need to launch distraction after distraction this week. Greenland! Banning fishing!
Trump loves to throw around words like ‘annihilate’. Back in April of this year, Trump declared, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Trump also threatened to bring Iran “back to the Stone Ages” and blast it “into oblivion” by targeting civilian power plants and bridges.
Before Trump started the war in February, 2026, he warned Iran to make a deal “before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire.”
In fact, before the beginning of August, 2026, Trump had already warned Iran and the world of the power he was going to unleash and the ensuing destruction seven times.
Ashland, southern Oregon. Wednesday, September 16, 2026.
Summer’s pullback continues. Thunderstorms are forecast for the area. With a temperature now of 64 and a high of 78 F, we’re leaning toward the cool side.
Sour mood again. Sorry. Apologies.
Mom is being discharged from the hospital. She’s to return to Heritage Grove assisted living. My sister, Gina, is taking her. Gina reports Mom is loopy and confused. They have her on O2. It feels like it’s a setup for another mess, which leaves me and my sisters down. With all of Mom’s issues, we know that only one thing can resolve her problems. The weariness just drags on.
Likewise, Trump news is a drag on the soul. His EPA is repealing pollution limits on fossil fuel power plants. Speaking with Trumplike stupidity, an EPA administrator said, “”The days of Biden and Obama working to destroy natural gas and coal are over.”
Yeah. That’s what Presidents Obama and Biden were doing. Sure. Had nothing to do with climate change. BTW, 2026 is set to go down as the hottest on record. But please, let’s put more pollutants in the air and water so that what we breathe and drink harms our health. People are already struggling with healthcare costs. Let’s load more problems. That’s Trump’s backwards thinking.
Never mind the history books full of stories about smoke from burning coal darkening the skies. Forget rivers on fire and cancer rising as industries dumped their pollutants into water systems.
And please, do ignore all the studies which show that improving the air and water quality led to increases in productivity.
No, Trump and the GOP are just going back in time, dragging us with them.
And what’s hilarious is that Trump wants more AI because he thinks the Chinese are pulling ahead. Without knowing how AI can generate profits and without regard to what all those AI centers can do to our health and environment, Trump wants to bull on.
It’s sadly funny but he’s amazing stupid, greedy, and short-sighted. But as said by many, because the truth is clear, Trump only cares about Trump.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Gosh, yes, Donald Trump, once you say, beautiful, it changes everything! Why, that’s amazing! You ARE such a genius, you idiot.
Here’s a photo of an American city back before the EPA was created, along with the regulations to protect the air, land, and water. You’re a fool if you can stand in that, look around, breathe in, and call it beautiful. As a 70-year-old, I lived through that air in my childhood and survived, and don’t want to see us go back to those days.
But when it comes to facts, truths, and history, Trump is an utter moron.
Which brings me around to my morning mental music stream. I don’t listen to a lot of Primus but I always liked the premise of “Moron TV”. Released in 2011, it’s a diatribe against how TV is used to shape children’s opinion. While that’s the focus, I think politics share this methodology, especially the Trump and MAGA crowd.
Sample Lyrics
Just when I thought I’d seen it all They pull a cretin from the shelves And flash that filth under their nails To make us feel better about ourselves
Well that one’s fit for a sex tape Well that one’s fit for a dad Well that one had more babies Than anyone’s ever had That one married a rock star That made all little girls squeal And that one want to be president Cause she’s got more eye appeal
May your day come dressed in peace and grace and you finish with joy and happiness.
That’s why, despite all Trump’s expertise, the national debt is skyrocketing.
Measles outbreaks have achieved levels not seen in over a quarter century.
Affordability remains a growing crisis in the United States, with oil, diesel, and energy prices leading the way.
The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t disappear overnight as Trump claimed it would. Over a million in the United States experienced COVID-19 related deaths. We are still coping with COVID-19 six years after Trump made those claims.
Look at the messes Trump has made across the world. Let’s begin with the garish gold he put on We the People’s house.
Shift to how he’s demolished the East Wing, wiping out a heritage he couldn’t grasp, which can’t be duplicated.
Trump then turned his ‘expertise’ to the Kennedy Center, which is now falling apart and begging for money.
Likewise, Trump messed up the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pond. Every time Trump had work done on the pool, Trump claimed, I know better. Every time, Trump disparaged others’ knowledge and efforts. Every time, Trump lied about what happened and bragged what he was doing next.
Trump burdened our economy with tariffs, thinking that will drive manufacturing to the United States, and started a war which he doesn’t know how to stop, which is only worsening the affordability crisis.
That would be the prices which Trump complained about as being too high under President Biden. Now they’re higher under Trump. But under Trump, Trump Double Standards are employed. He spins a new word weave. These prices are not higher. They’re coming down soon. And they’re not his fault. Nor are they a problem — it’s a golden age! Here’s some tariff relief to bring prices down and more pulled from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves to try to reduce prices.
Then, Trump proffered five grand if his party keeps control of Congress.
Finally, in a desperate effort to displace blame and responsibility, Trump pivoted, blaming Ukraine for high diesel prices because Ukraine bombed Russia while pretending the war he started with Iran isn’t the single largest driver of rising prices.
Just as a reminder, Trump said he would end the Ukraine Russia war by the time he took office in 2025, eighteen months ago. Despite that claim, the war continues.
In short, Trump has created a shit show.
Now Trump is claiming that he knows more than AI experts. Eschewing their warnings, just as he dismissed warnings about tariffs, war with Iran, COVID-19 — just as he’s ignored every warning any true knowledgeable expert gave.
