Song: American Stress Test

I keep hearing about Trump derangement syndrome. The idea that people have become irrational or even obsessed. They're just unable to stop talking about Donald Trump. Maybe some people have, but I don't think that's what's happening to me. The truth is, I would love to stop talking about him. But every road seems to lead back to the same place because he's not just some politician. He's a symptom, a mirror, a stress test. The reason he keeps showing up isn't because the media told me what to believe. It's because the question surrounding him have become impossible to ignore. Does character matter, does truth matter, do powerful people face consequences? Are there still standards? Or is everything negotiable now? I grew up hearing the same lessons most Americans did. If you make a mistake on it, if you hurt someone, apologize. If you're caught lying, tell the truth. If you break something, fix it. Nobody is perfect, but accountability matters. Every day I wake up and stumble into another headline that sounds like it was written by some cocaine. Addicted screenwriter, a US president found liable for a particularly bio. Kind of a boost and now has the DOJ investigating the victim. He denied the attacks, he escalates the people around him attack. The institutions investigating him are attacking, the accusers are attacking, the judges are attacking, the juries are attacking, the whole process itself is attacked. And somehow accountability becomes persecution. Consequences become victimhood instead. From where I'm sitting, the derangement seems to be coming from the people pretending this is all normal. The children are watching all of this. God, help them. They're watching adults navigate failure by refusing responsibility. They're watching public fingers treat apologies like boys and they're watching people gain power by never admitting mistakes. They're learning that strength means never backing down, even when you're wrong, especially when you're wrong. What frightens me is the possibility that we've become. So addicted to winning, that we've forgotten, that the purpose of attacking principles in the first place, because principles only seem to matter when they cost you something otherwise. They're just decorations and if we keep teaching our children that victory is more important than integrity eventually, they'll believe us. Then one day they'll inherit this magnificent, confused, angry circus we've built, and ask a perfectly reasonable question. Why should I be accountable for anything at all? Nobody else seems to be, and maybe that's why I keep writing about it. Not because I'm obsessed with Trump, but because I'm obsessed with the line, the line between strength and arrogance, the line between loyalty and worship, the line between accountability and victimhood, the line between a Republican and a goddamn fan club. And lately it feels like we're losing sight of all of it.