An intensive psych-eval politicians; now that has real possibilities…

Try as I might, I can’t put my finger on what causes the lunacy we call politics, particularly partisan politics. It’s best defined as performance rather than governance. I used to think no one’s that f-ing stupid, but I’ve been wrong before. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have been redefining common words and phrases I’ve been watching for at least 55 years, and probably well before that, to justify and rationalize their misleading and deceptive language.

We bought their lie, hook, line, and sinker… We have been completely fooled, deceived, and tricked, but not everything is a lie. Deception is so plentiful and the truth so rare that we don’t recognize it as it floats by. Politicians lie because their ends justify their means. You haven’t heard that phrase in a while… and although it’s a supposition, it does explain their tendency to deceive us.

Truth in politics is a unicorn. 

Yes, we are that stupid; they don’t just think so; they know we really are.

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” ~ George Carlin

This is precisely what the politicians count on…

The technical description of the malady is NPD: Narcissistic Personality Disorder. A comprehensive psychological evaluation conducted by a qualified mental health professional (psychiatrist or psychologist) can accurately identify NPD. These evaluations use clinical interviews and standardized personality tests to assess traits such as grandiosity, lack of empathy, and a need for admiration, in accordance with DSM-5 criteria. Experts widely acknowledge that the political profession attracts these individuals, and that the environment promotes a high prevalence of narcissistic traits, including grandiosity, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy. Consider that the two things narcissists most desire are money: lots of money, and power: the more, the better.

NPD cannot be “cured” in the traditional sense because it involves deeply ingrained personality patterns. However, it is considered treatable, and with long-term psychotherapy, individuals can manage symptoms, reduce maladaptive traits, improve emotional regulation, and build healthier relationships. Although complete eradication of narcissistic traits is unlikely, significant, meaningful change can occur over several years of consistent, specialized treatment.

Which profession offers unfettered access to both… I’ll give you a second to think about it.

Politics! The activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties seeking wealth and power.

Who knows when it all began? The infighting may have begun before the founding of the first colony in Jamestown in 1607, well before we declared war on the British Empire in 1776. By then, the partisans were already hard at work.

The war for independence cost an estimated 70,000 lives on all sides and $3 trillion in today’s dollars… quite an investment. I think it was worth it; we have the United States of America as a result. We were given a blank canvas to build the best country possible and a democratic representative republic to govern it. Through it all, the political partisans fought for control… to run the new republic they envisioned.

America became a republic on July 4, 1776, with the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Political parties emerged in the 1780s amid ideological divisions over the ratification of the Constitution. The first two were the Federalists, who championed a strong national government, a robust financial system, and a pro-British foreign policy. The Democratic-Republicans advocated a strict interpretation of the Constitution, states’ rights, and a limited federal government.

The two parties we have today emerged in the early 19th century: the Democrats in 1820 and the Republicans in 1854. While political factions existed in the 1790s (Federalists vs. Democratic-Republicans), the specific, enduring Democratic and Republican parties established the current two-party system in the mid-1850s.

George Washington became our first President in 1789 and left office in 1797. In his 1796 Farewell Address, he warned that political parties (“factions”) would destroy the young United States by causing “the alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge.” He believed partisanship would stifle public administration, incite riots, and invite foreign influence, ultimately serving as a “potent engine” for “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men” to seize control of the government. Does any of this sound familiar?

I’ve used this statement a lot lately because I think it exposes one of America’s deep-seated problems: partisan competition. The Constitution wasn’t even ratified, yet the contest for political control was already in full force. These ‘cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men’ fought for control, and it’s been that way ever since. The political party became the ‘potent engine’ for dismantling the republic. The ink was barely dry, and they were already dividing the country along partisan lines over political principles and power.

Look at what we’ve done with this hard-fought, hard-won independence and liberty. It’s been tragically and frightfully misused. Of course, that’s a subjective assessment; other people’s opinions differ, as you would expect. Isn’t that what makes this republic special? Where else can the castoffs and remnants of all the great nations coalesce into the most powerful nation on the planet?

We have the power to overcome any existential obstacle when we face it together; when we want to, that is. When there is no threat, we seem to separate like oil and water until something shakes up the status quo. Then we coalesce and become stronger than the sum of our parts. This is what defines America so perfectly. When we’re on the same side of anything, we’re unstoppable, but when life’s great, we create our own problems.

What’s wrong with us? Is it our boredom or just our contentious nature… You decide, but it points to a fundamental defect in Americans and perhaps in mankind itself. We are the enemy within the gates that Cicero described.

Am I wrong?

Are we our own worst enemies? I use the plural here because we’ve adopted multiple new tactics to fracture and destroy this republic and nation, and everything we do lately seems to reinforce my premise. We are never satisfied – if it’s broken, we fix it, but if it’s working, we tinker with it until it breaks, then we have something to fix. We never restore it, always rebuilding it in a Frankenstein-esque, monstrous way. Introducing Socialism into our constitutional federal representative democracy is a perfect example.

Or maybe we intentionally break things to introduce these aberrant and untenable political utopian brain-farts to prove they will never work. America is not just a great melting pot but, as Washington noted, the great experiment. However, Washington’s reference was to democracy, not some dimwitted sociopolitical crapshoot.

This is the process of forming divisions.

Here’s an analogy. I recently watched a video clip about splitting a large block of stone. It begins by drilling small holes along a planned fracture line. Sleeves are inserted into the holes, and wedges are driven into the sleeves until the rock fractures and the pieces fall away. High-yield explosives are more efficient, like shutting down the government to extort power or throwing temper tantrums on the floor of Congress, “the opposite of progress.” The impact is the same… You split the boulder. But what did it cost to achieve this result, and was it really worth it?

This is what Washington warned us about…

Partisan politics has done more damage to this republic than any enemy ever could because it is internal, allowing our enemies to exploit our animosity and greed for their own ends. Do you know how many Socialists and Democratic Socialists are in positions of power right now? At last count, 250 members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) held elected public office. This represents a 90% increase since 2019; 128 nationally endorsed candidates won elections, and 31 DSA-endorsed ballot initiatives passed into law.

The Cato Institute estimates that 27% of non-citizens are registered to vote and that 13% voted illegally in the 2024 presidential and congressional elections. I hope you’re beginning to see the issue more clearly. This is only one small part of the Democrat-Socialist conspiracy; it goes much deeper.

The latest estimates show that there are 22.4 million lawful (green card holders) non-citizens in America. They are part of the 53 million total foreign-born population in this country. If 27% of this population, or 6.1 million, are registered to vote, then potentially 3 million voted in the 2024 election. This is pure speculation based on the available numbers, but it highlights the Left’s rationale for their passionate dissent on voter ID. Now imagine adding another 53 million potential Democratic-Socialist voters to the rolls… The 15th Amendment to the US Constitution stipulates that only US Citizens have the right to vote.

Having multiple political choices is not necessarily a bad thing if all elections are fair and reflect the will of US citizens, but many of us suspect widespread election fraud and tampering. Why else would the Left fight so ferociously to prevent voter ID if everything is kosher (ritually pure)?

Doesn’t that raise some concern?

It certainly should!

I find this absolutely mind-boggling, if not insane, that the republic that fought to erase Marxism from the map is now being run by the Marxists it tried to erase. Think about that!

Here’s a brief clarification to help you understand this far-left political and economic ideology.

Marxism, Socialism, and Communism are interconnected ideologies that address capitalist inequalities, yet they differ in goals and implementation. Marxism is the theoretical framework centered on class struggle. Socialism is a transitional stage in which the state controls production, while Communism is the final stateless, classless, and moneyless society. There are many excellent, detailed discussions on the internet if you care to research this topic, but for now, I ask that you trust my synopsis.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. I see an astonishing parallel between the actions within our legislative body, Congress, “the opposite of progress,” and the actual results of these efforts and their benefit to the republic. They meet, they argue, they blame, they enact laws, about 300,000 in all, and spend our tax money – more on that later. Despite their unfathomable ineffectiveness, they repeat the process with each session. I’d call this the epitome of insanity. Any benefits are self-aggrandizing at the expense of those they ostensibly serve.

How long have we been creating problems for ourselves?

How many wars and conflicts has America fought, won, or lost, only to start another somewhere in the world, or, worse yet, here at home? And now we face the most ruinous and self-inflicted wound of all… We elected our enemies to run the republic. You do recall that everything we face at home is labeled a ‘war’. The war on homelessness, drugs, poverty, race, equality, equity, inclusivity, sexual freedom, gender affirmation, education, immigration, and the list goes on ad infinitum.

But the conspicuous conundrum is that we’ve never won any of them.

Can you name one of these internal, national, economic, social, or physical wars that we’ve actually won?

Since the beginning of the 21st Century, we have invested:

– over $8 trillion in direct military operations,

– over $13 trillion on internal operations,

– for a grand total of $21 trillion!

– $840 billion per year for the past 25 years to fix the problems we have created, and… we still haven’t fixed a single friggin thing. – Holy Sheep-Shit!!!

Our National Debt is rapidly approaching $39 trillion, up $2.23 trillion year over year, and is forecast to reach $40 trillion by the end of 2026 or early 2027, increasing by $25 billion per day.

The annual interest payment on this debt is $1 trillion, increasing by $2 billion per day, and is expected to reach $16.2 trillion per year by 2036 – 10 years from now.

The figures above are from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan federal agency in the legislative branch that provides Congress with independent, objective, and timely analysis of budgetary and economic issues. Established by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, the CBO serves as an unbiased source of information for lawmakers, producing cost estimates for legislation, budget projections, and economic forecasts.

Have any of these expenditures had a positive impact on any of America’s problems?

Your silence is deafening… so I’ll answer for you. It’s done nothing for the republic, yet it’s made a few politicians and citizens fabulously wealthy. I have yet to receive a single thank-you note from any of those I support; in fact, they remind me, without fail, of when my ‘mandatory’ tax payments are due (see the 16th Amendment for details).

Note: I am officially retired, almost, but if I ran my businesses this poorly, I would be in jail! Yet we keep electing these miscreants to abuse our trust and squander our money on pet projects and dumb-shit national ideas. Senator Rand Paul compiles an annual list of federally funded, obscure bullshit projects called the “Festivus Report,” which highlights a few of them.

Then there was DOGE – Discovering Outrageous Government Excess, a U.S. presidential initiative led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to drastically reduce federal spending, regulations, and workforce size. Established via executive order on January 20, 2025, it operated outside standard agency structures, auditing departments and cutting costs before its scheduled end. It was disbanded prematurely in November 2025 due to legal challenges in Congress, “the opposite of progress”. It seems DOGE pulled back the curtain on too much waste, fraud, and abuse… The man behind the curtain got caught with his pants down!

WTFO?

Partisan politicians have invited, incited, and embedded the critical elements that could easily trigger the next civil war while we, the voters, weren’t paying attention. Some of us fell under the Svengali spell and the DSA’s promises. Equality and equity are lovely-sounding platitudes that woo the unsuspecting sheeple to the slaughterhouse, while others were too distracted by the mainstream media to notice these harbingers of disaster. We trusted the media to tell the truth, missing the double entendre – whose truth…

– Equality is the principle that all individuals are treated the same, with equal rights, opportunities, and access to resources, regardless of differences such as race, gender, or background.

* Hint – equality is already guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

– Equity in the social sense is the fair and just distribution of resources, opportunities, and privileges within a society, ensuring that all individuals can reach their full potential.

* Hint – for the government to give you ANYTHING… it must take it from someone else first.

I know you’ve heard this before, but it bears repeating. Suppose you need heart surgery. Would you want an equity-placed student with moderate medical aptitude and skills, or an academic medical superstar? Or, if the airliner you’re in at 35,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean encounters severe turbulence, would you want a DIE-Hire pilot in the cockpit or a seasoned veteran?

The choice is yours, but I’m unwilling to gamble my life on a social construct meant to promote the fair treatment of socially marginalized, underrepresented, and underqualified groups. Who decided these groups qualify? Was there an application process, or was this more about welfare-whiners waiting for their ‘fair’ share?

In his 1875 treatise Critique of the Gotha Programme, Karl Marx coined the slogan that captures the essence of his manifesto. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” It represents the final stage of communist society, where abundance allows free access to goods and people contribute based on ability without coercion. It emphasizes fair distribution based on individual needs. It’s a wildly altruistic fantasy because it fails to account for human nature, leading to stagnation rather than a utopian society.

In our world, the real world, governments don’t make anything but decisions. They don’t create wealth; they distribute it by creating and collecting taxes. That’s where it starts…

Now, about this impending civil war.

AI tells me there are four primary causes of war…

– Economic and territorial

– Security and power

– Ideological and Societal

– Political and Institutional

Underlying this is the M.A.I.N. test, an acronym used to analyze large-scale conflicts.

– Militarism

– Alliances

– Imperialism

– Nationalism

There’s one missing. In my view, the biggest motivator is greed, at least in this country. We often see greed in ideology, politics, or society, but it ultimately comes down to wanting what someone else has. It’s an intense, selfish, and excessive desire to acquire more wealth, power, food, or possessions than one needs or deserves. It is characterized by an insatiable, often destructive craving for more, regardless of the consequences. Often viewed negatively, it implies a lack of satisfaction and an unwillingness to share.

I’m sure none of you has ever experienced or noticed this inordinate longing firsthand, but maybe you’ve seen it in others through their actions and language. They are always, always asking for something, selling something, or demanding something. I think of Congress, “the opposite of progress,” which is never, ever satisfied with the status quo. They always crave more, and more, and more… How much is enough, and when does it become too much?

This constitutional federal representative democracy (a democratic republic) is designed with checks and balances so that none of the three branches dominates the others. But the loonies – politicians – can’t seem to leave well enough alone and tinker with these safeguards to gain power over the other branches and over each other, thus upsetting the balance in the system. They always, always, always, find someone or something to blame for their incessant failures, and we, the citizens of this fine republic, re-elect them time after time after time, ad nauseam. Either we’re blind or completely apathetic.

Why would we make the same or similar choices and expect different results?
We must be insane, as Einstein said… taking the same steps or making the same choices and expecting different results.

Which path are you on?

Just in case you didn’t catch the inferences in this commentary, the loonies are our elected leadership, and the path is the US Constitution. I believe the original document and its amendments provide sufficient safeguards for this republic, and all this bullshit about legal challenges and reinterpretation obscures the reasons those challenges exist. If we’d followed the original design and stuck to the intent, we would not be facing another internal war—I hesitate to call it civil because no war is ever really civil. We’ve screwed the pooch again, and maybe this will be the last time, depending on how this all ends…

‘The devil you say…’

For the Amalgamated Heavy

 

February 20, 2026

~ the Author ~
Charles R. Dickens Was Born in 1951, Is a Veteran of the Vietnam War, for Which He Volunteered, and the Great-Great Grandson of the Noted Author, Whose Name He Shares.

He Is a Fiercely Proud American, Who Still Believes This Is the Greatest Country on the Planet, With Which We’ve Lost Control and Certainly Our Direction. He Grew Up in Moderate Financial Surrounding; We’re Not Rich by Any Stretch, but Didn’t Go Hungry – His Incredibly Hard Working Father Saw to That. As Most From That Era, He Learned About Life From His Father, Whose Story Would Take Too Long to Tell, Other Than to Say That, He Is Also a Fiercely Proud American; A WWII and Korean War, Veteran Marine.

Charlie Was Educated in the Parochial System Which, Demanded That You Actually Learn Something, and Have Capability to Retain It Before You Advance. He Attended Several Universities in Pursuit of a Bachelor’s Degree, and Chased the Goose Further to a Master’s, and Has Retained Some Very Definite Ideas About Education in This Country.

in Addition, Charlie Is a Retired Blues Guitar and Vocalist – a Musician. This Was His Therapy Career. Nothing Brings Him as Much Joy as Playing Music, and He Wishes That He Could Make a Living at It… but Alas… Life Goes on!