THE DUEL: The Randy Revolt of the D-Minus Students!

MONDAY, AUGUST 25, 2025

The Haplessness of the Elites: At the risk of beating a pony to death, we'll start by saying that you should regard it as a remarkable moment.

We refer to the moment when President Trump took President Macron aside. 

He had left a meeting of mere Euros to speak by phone with "his darling Clementine." In this case, his Clementine was Vladimir Putin. As captured by a hot microphone, his report to Macron concerning the  call went exactly like this:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (8/18/25): I think he wants to make a deal. I think he wants to make a deal for me. 

Do you understand that? As crazy as it sounds.

[Addressing the entire room]

Sit down. Sit down, everybody. I think we’ll let the press come in for a minute.

To his credit, he said he knew that it sounded crazy. But it's hard to deny that he wanted to believe this dream.

Subsequent evidence strongly suggests that President Putin doesn't want to make a deal for peace in Ukraine. Nor does he want to make a deal for his darling, President Trump.

Almost surely, these men don't share the friendship concerning which the American president seems to have dreamed. With that, we once again present our assessment:

To our ear, the moment that microphone captured that day was one of the most revelatory statements we've ever heard a political figure make.

On this campus, we heard the voice of Gretta Conroy when we heard what the president said. Others may not have heard her voice, but we believe that her voice was there. 

Over here on this sprawling campus, we believe what we heard was true. We bel.ieve that President Trump revealed an unfortunate part of himself that day.

Concerning our president, this:

We think he tends to have extremely poor judgment. We've suggested that something seems to be wrong, and that you should pity the child.

We've recommended his niece's account of how he came to be this way. For the record, even as she seemed to pity the child, her assessment of the adult that child became was lodged right there in the title of her 2020 best-seller:

Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man

Oof! Plainly, her best-selling "family memoir" wasn't an endorsement of her famous and powerful uncle. Along the way, it seems to us that she was able to pity the child. But this brings us to a key question:

Is something wrong with this powerful man? Is something "wrong" in the way we mean?

Over here in Blue America, your journalists have agreed that they must never speak to medical specialists about that fairly obvious question. No matter what the gentleman does, their pose is simple:

In an unhelpful spin-off from Groundhog Day, our journalists are perpetually shocked.

This Blue elite refuses to ask if something might be wrong with the president—with the angry, erratic man who thought that Vladimir might actually want to make a peace deal for him. Handicapped by their silence, we ourselves have decided to click around in popular accounts of the relevant medical science.

In Saturday's report, we touched upon what the medical science says about "compulsive [or] pathological lying." (Some say they aren't the same thing.)

A link within that report took us here—to "Delusions of grandeur." At that site, another link took us to this:

Grandiosity

In psychology, grandiosity is a sense of superiority, uniqueness, or invulnerability that is unrealistic and not based on personal capability. It may be expressed by exaggerated beliefs regarding one's abilities, the belief that few other people have anything in common with oneself, and that one can only be understood by a few, very special people. Grandiosity is a core diagnostic criterion for hypomania/mania in bipolar disorder and narcissistic personality disorder.

[...]

Grandiosity is also measured as part of other tests, including the Specific Psychotic Experiences Questionnaire (SPEQ), Personality Assessment for DSM-5 (PID-5), Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, and diagnostic interviews for bipolar disorders and NPD. The Grandiosity section of the Diagnostic Interview for Narcissism (DIN), for instance, describes:

1. The person exaggerates talents, capacity, and achievements in an unrealistic way.

2. The person believes in their invulnerability or does not recognize their limitations.

3. The person has grandiose fantasies.

4. The person believes that they do not need other people.

5. The person over-examines and downgrades other people's projects, statements, or dreams in an unrealistic manner.

6. The person regards themself as unique or special when compared to other people.

7. The person regards themself as generally superior to other people.

8. The person behaves self-centeredly and/or self-referentially.

9. The person behaves in a boastful or pretentious way.

Grandiose narcissism is a subtype of narcissism with grandiosity as its central feature, in addition to other agentic and antagonistic traits (e.g., dominance, attention-seeking, entitlement, manipulation). The term "narcissistic grandiosity" is sometimes used as a synonym for grandiose narcissism.

A great deal more content follows. But even as we've suggested that you should learn to pity the child, we're also asking if that list of symptoms sounds like any public figure you see on the stage at this time.

Is something wrong with President Trump—with the adult the child became? Also, what does it even mean when someone is diagnosed with a "mental disorder?" 

If a person is so diagnosed, are we simply describing that person's behavior, or is that person gripped by an "illness," in something like the way a person can be gripped by the measles or mumps? 

Here on this planet, the elites of our own Blue America make it clear that they don't intend to tackle any such questions. This is a fuzzy branch of medical science, but that's especially so when the people who went to the finest schools aren't even willing to ask.

Yesterday, the furious American president exploded again, as reported by Mediaite:

Trump Threatens ‘Sloppy’ Chris Christie with ‘Bridgegate’ Probe After ABC Jab

So it went, once again. The news report in the New York Times starts exactly like this:

Trump Threatens to Investigate Chris Christie Over ‘Bridgegate’

President Trump on Sunday threatened to investigate former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey over a 2013 political scandal, days after the F.B.I. raided the home and office of another former Trump official turned critic.

Mr. Trump made the threat on social media after Mr. Christie said during an appearance on ABC News that the president “doesn’t care” about maintaining a separation between his office and criminal investigations. 

[...]

Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform late Sunday that Mr. Christie had lied about 2013 lane closures on the George Washington Bridge “in order to stay out of prison, at the same time sacrificing people who worked for him.” The president was referring to a decision by Mr. Christie’s associates to close access lanes to the bridge, which links New Jersey and Manhattan, in order to punish the Democratic mayor of a New Jersey town.

“Chris refused to take responsibility for these criminal acts,” Mr. Trump wrote. “For the sake of JUSTICE, perhaps we should start looking at that very serious situation again? NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW!”

That's the start of the news report. On Truth Social, the post went like this:

Truth Details

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

I just watched Sloppy Chris Christie be interviewed on a ratings challenged “News” Show, “This Week With George Slopadopolus,” on ABC Fake News (By the way, what the “hell” happened to Jonathan Karl’s hair? He looks absolutely terrible! It’s amazing what bad ratings, on a failed television show that was forced to pay me $16,000,000, can do to one’s appearance!). Can anyone believe anything that Sloppy Chris says? Do you remember the way he lied about the dangerous and deadly closure of the George Washington Bridge in order to stay out of prison, at the same time sacrificing people who worked for him, including a young mother, who spent years trying to fight off the vicious charges against her. Chris refused to take responsibility for these criminal acts. For the sake of JUSTICE, perhaps we should start looking at that very serious situation again? NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT

"Slopadopolus" interviewed "Sloppy Chris;" Karl's hair was an absolute mess. In response, the president threatened to reopen a matter which was resolved long ago. 

(For the record, Christie "refused to take responsibility for these criminal acts" because no one believed, in the end, that he had committed such acts.)

Just this once, we'll be honest. We feel sorry for this tormented man—for anyone so tortured. That said, we direct your attention to the war between the two armies who are currently fighting about the things he says and does.

One of these armies is staging this war:

The Revolt of the D-Minus Students

You can see them on Fox & Friends, or on The Five, or on The Big Weekend Show (now expanded to two hours, replacing one hour of news). 

There's nothing so dumb that they won't say it, with everyone affirming whatever the last person said. But due to the failures of a second group, these numbskulls are never completely wrong.

A revolt is being waged by one army—and they're often right on the merits! How can such numbskulls be right on the merits? It's because of this second armed force:

The Determined, Stubborn Haplessness of the (Blue American) Elites

The haplessness of the Blue elites supplies a great deal of the fuel for the D-minus brigade. In each case, we're speaking about professional armies. We're not speaking about 152.3 million citizens who voted for Harris or Trump.

A war is being fought between those two groups. At present, it seems to us that the Blue army seems to be losing.

We heard the voice of Gretta Conroy when the president waylaid Macron last week. In fairness, there was one major difference:

As it turned out, Gretta Conroy's tragic assessment, drenched in regret, seemed to be well founded. The president made a crazy claim. He seemed to be lost in delusion, a dream.

We feel sorry for someone so lost. If you can learn to pity the child who gave birth to the man, we Blues might even be able to find the way to bring on his (political) defeat.

Tomorrow: There's nothing so dumb they won't say it