{"id":35384,"date":"2026-05-12T11:06:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T16:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=35384"},"modified":"2026-05-12T14:27:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T19:27:01","slug":"the-decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=35384","title":{"rendered":"The Decline"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Once upon a time, the United States was graced with presidents of great probity and wisdom.<\/p>\n<p>Now, we have Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"718\" height=\"747\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Vivaldi_20260512_103526.jpg\" alt=\"Screenshot of an official Tweet from the White House, collection two screenshots of Trump&#039;s Truth Social account. (Screenshots within screenshots, turtles all the way down...)  Top, an AI slop image of a drone blowing up two Iranian gunboats with the caption, &quot;BYE BYE Fast Boats.&quot; Bottom, a US Navy vessel shooting down an Iranian fighter jet with the caption, &quot;Lasers: Bing, Bing, GONE!!!&quot;\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-35385\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve known three year-olds throwing tantrums who have displayed more maturity than Trump.<\/p>\n<p>He is an old man, dying of congestive heart failure, <a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/210287\/trump-sunsetting-visibly-worsens-aides-go-full-cult-around\">in the throes of a ever worsening and increasingly visible dementia<\/a>.  His ego will doom us, and the machinations of those who can manipulate him will destroy us.<\/p>\n<p>These are dark days, my friends.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"576\" height=\"563\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot_20260512-081320.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-35386\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Once upon a time, the United States was graced with presidents of great probity and wisdom. Now, we have Donald Trump. I&#8217;ve known three year-olds throwing tantrums who have displayed more maturity than Trump. He is an old man, dying of congestive heart failure, in the throes of a ever worsening and increasingly visible dementia.<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=35384\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;The Decline&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119],"tags":[4258,180,5443],"class_list":["post-35384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-donald-trump","tag-iran","tag-operation","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}