Welcome to the new year. What a ride 2025 was. The stoics tell us the universe is operated by reason and logic, and it takes emotional control to understand this fact.
Donald Trump isn’t a stoic. His philosophy, if indeed he has one, is defined by manipulation — the results of which are apparent to anyone in the United States, no matter their personal philosophy.
Trump demands one way: loyalty. Everyone who works for him knows this. They accept it because they see something in it for themselves — above and beyond whatever societal benefits they think come from Trump’s actions, or their own. There are many others who don’t know Trump, yet they selflessly offer their support because they believe he has the better vision for humanity. Despite what they say publicly, I know of no member of his senior staff who believes that. Their actions tell us otherwise. Many if not all of them have, at one time or another, openly defied and ridiculed the president. But no matter: Their personal enrichment now leads them elsewhere.
However manipulative he may be, Trump cannot invent his own universe, take us with him and dwell in it. The universe will ultimately prove him wrong. I submit that it already has.
His latest public appearance, which came on Dec. 29 with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, not only showed the world how manipulative the pair are, but it also served to highlight the president’s fragile mental and physical health.
His latest public appearance, which came on Dec. 29 with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, not only showed the world how manipulative the pair are, but it also served to highlight the president’s fragile mental and physical health.
Think of how far we have traveled with Trump in the last few years. He used to conduct endless rallies outside of small rural airports where thousands cheered him. Some of these events took place in oppressive heat. Trump would stand and speak with the energy and alacrity of a bad disco dancer on Adderall. Sometimes members of the audience would pass out while he tirelessly ranted about some arcane subject that mattered little, but he would draw applause nonetheless. Now he speaks in nearly empty rooms, or before small groups. He talks less frequently, for shorter lengths of time, and he is often seated when he does so.
I remember standing next to Dr. Sanjay Gupta during a press conference in the Brady Briefing Room during Trump’s first administration. The subject was the president’s annual physical. For more than an hour, members of the press sifted through dozens of pages of test results, asked questions about Trump’s health and gave Dr. Ronny Jackson the opportunity to tell us the president would live to be 200. Going through the paperwork, I turned to Dr. Gupta and said that, while I was no doctor, Trump’s test results resembled my father’s — who had suffered from mild heart disease before he passed. “I am a doctor,” Gupta smiled, before pointing to specific examples of why that was true.
Today? Trump and his administration refuse to have extended press conferences about his health. He claims to not even know where or why he had a recent MRI. Meanwhile he brags about acing three different cognitive tests in the last year. Why has he taken three cognitive tests in the last year? He doesn’t say.
It’s been nearly eight years since that first presidential health press conference. Does anyone truly believe that Trump, living with the stress of being a vindictive man on a revenge tour and combined with the extraordinary stress of being a president, has done his heart any favors?
This year could well be a huge turning point in our country due to the failing health of an aging president. In fact, odds are still high that if something were to befall Trump, it would happen while he is gripping a seven-iron and trying to chip himself out of the rough at his favorite golf course.
The White House is aware of this, and that’s why Vice President JD Vance is on the road, prepping like a second-string quarterback while the starter is wavering on the field. Or, if that metaphor doesn’t appeal to you, how about a late-inning relief pitcher warming up in the bullpen? Vance is the primary example of someone putting their personal distaste for Trump aside in order to personally profit from him. He proves that even if you were a “Never Trump guy,” claimed that Trump was unfit for office or compared him to Adolf Hitler, you can still work for him. You only have to smile and swallow the political swill; there’s potentially a personal pot of gold at the end of the Trump political s**t show.
The chickens rarely come home to roost for those who stay loyal to Trump — or at least they haven’t yet. Those who dream of Stephen Miller wearing orange, or can’t wait to see FBI Director Kash Patel, Attorney General Pam Bondi or a host of other high Trump officials serving time may one day look back and point to 2026 as the year those things became possible.
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The facts are these: 2026 does not bode well for Trump, his followers or any of us if we continue on the current path. The president is faltering and failing. His enablers, handlers and fans are mistaken in their efforts to support such a feckless, festering, feral fool. They have sacrificed their higher obligation — not to religion or a political party, but to each other. We built an entire civilization through some level of cooperation. Today’s politics is all about tearing things down.
Look ahead to November and the midterm elections. That’s the obvious event that could change the path of our existence. Impeachment looms heavily in the mind of Trump should his MAGA cohorts fail to hold onto Congress. He sends out weekly emails to his supporters warning them of that scenario — and striking fear in his followers once again. Trump knows a Democratic-dominated Congress will not be the geldings his MAGA supporters who dominate today’s chambers are.
But getting enough Democrats elected means finding candidates who can appeal to enough Americans, something the party has spectacularly — with the exception of Joe Biden — been unable to do since Trump knuckle-crawled onto the political stage.
“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control,” said the stoic philosopher Epictetus. “Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…”
Or, if you are in a 12-step program, you could just grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change, the courage to change those that I can and the wisdom to know the difference. That’s where we need to be going as we move into 2026 when it comes to Trump, the MAGA movement and our existential angst.
A year ago we were in the final days of an administration headed by a man some were convinced was sliding into dementia. Biden began his term getting Congress to work together to pass a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill. Things went downhill after that. While you can argue he should never have run for a second term, you also cannot deny the Democrats went along with it until his debate with Trump. After that, the party kicked him to the curb like an unwanted mongrel. Out of fear and panic, Democrats ate their own, and after making a big political meal out of Biden, their standard bearer, Trump’s GOP could not stop grinning at the Democrats as they brought in Vice President Kamala Harris to challenge Trump.
And so here we are, staring at a world of injustice, which, according to Marcus Aurelius, “lies in what you aren’t doing, not only in what you are doing.”
Do not decline to get involved. It’s not enough to avoid doing evil. You must be a force for good in the world, as best you can. If that’s hard to understand, then look to former President Jimmy Carter, who echoed those stoic thoughts in a modern world when he said, “I have one life and one chance to make it count for something. My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can.”
That might even appeal to some Christians.
Trump, not being a stoic — and while happily exploiting Christians — is still enjoying his revenge tour, which will continue as long as he is able to stand upright, or to speak while seated.
Trump, not being a stoic — and while happily exploiting Christians — is still enjoying his revenge tour, which will continue as long as he is able to stand upright, or to speak while seated. On Tuesday he vetoed two bipartisan infrastructure-related bills. One of the bills would help lower the price of a water pipeline in Colorado. Trump said his veto restored “economic sanity.” Those who need the water pipeline might see things differently.
Trump also got the go-ahead from a U.S. appeals court that allows him to strip Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood health centers in 22 states and Washington, D.C., an effort that was part of his One Big Beautiful Bill. The court action may make the president happy, but it does nothing to abate the anger millions have against him.
As a nation, our biggest challenge going into 2026 is to overcome our anger with each other. Anger won’t solve our problems; it will only cause more. When we lived in caves, we learned to band together to help each other. We became apex predators not because of individualism but because of a sense of community.
Extinction is the norm on this planet. If we have any hope of avoiding it, then we must work together as one community. Label it whatever you wish, but the science is sound on this subject — and it is obvious that, by denying science, we’ve taken a pronounced step backward and are hastening our own demise.
My wish for 2026 is that we take a step forward in a different philosophical direction. My concern is that Trump’s failing health will ultimately be a breaking point for the anger on both sides of the political aisle.
My hope? A stoic understanding of our responsibility to each other that will allow us to move beyond our current existential crisis. Space travel. Peace. Good rock n’ roll. Better movies. Fun at the Kennedy Center. Cities on the moon, Mars and elsewhere as we tame and inhabit our solar system.
At the very least, I hope we don’t explode into a paroxysm of violence that consumes the world.
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