The Illusion Is Broken

[Mr.WeRP]

MAGA I know personally are starting to challenge shit Trump says now, beyond Epstein. This is real and not something I’ve seen since before the Tea Party whack jobs started the birther bs with Obama. Nick Fuentes is over it. Candice Owens long over it. Even Tucker Carlson.

There is momentum on this and it has been building since the DoJ announced there were no Epstein files.

And today, it is announced Trump is ill with a serious chronic disease that will definitely impact his quality of life.

He’s old as dirt, his game is at its end and his suckers and losers are breaking ranks, starting to realize they’ve been the sheeple all along.

Did not have this on my 2025 bingo card.

[applegrove]

1. Maybe the GOP wants their party back?

Last edited Thu Jul 17, 2025, 11:37 PM - Edit history (2)

[FiveFifteen]

3. Link?

About illness?

Thanks.

[applegrove]

5. You linked to the wrong person. I did not mention Trump's illness.

[Mossfern]

6. It's just venous insufficiency,

quite common in older people. It isn't life threatening.

[Dr. T]

19. Dammit! I was hoping it was cancer.

Or late-stage syphilis.

[ShazzieB]

41. The symptoms fit congestive heart failure, which is definitely life-threatening, although it might take a while.

[Dr. T]

43. Whatever it is, I hope it's painful.

[ShazzieB]

40. Supposedly. IF you believe what the Trump White Hiuse says.

I'm taking it with a large grain of salt myself. I think he likely has congestive heart failure. And even if it's just venous insufficiency, it's not necessarily as benign as they would like us to believe. if it is something really serious, I don't trust Lying Donald and his lying sycophants to tell us the actual facts.

Of course I can't prove any of this. I'm just stating my opinion. Fwiw, I'm not the only one who thinks the white House is likely lying. Mary Trump (whose YouTube channel I've become a fan of) doesn't believe they'd tell the truth, either.

Time will tell. Tick tock, Donald. Tick...tock....

[Joinfortmill]

47. Usually folks have 5 years from diagnosis to death

If it's congestive heart failure, with assisted living necessary by year three or four.

[ShazzieB]

55. Thanks for this info!

It occurs to me that - if he has congestive heart failure - we have no way of knowing when it was diagnosed or how advanced it is at present. From what I'm reading, congestive heart failure tends to be asymptomatic in the earlier stages, and symptoms gradually become more severe as the condition advances. Just something to think about.

[Iris]

58. It seems almost any illness would be sped up in a role like POTUS

[JoseBalow]

9. Here ya go

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=trump+illness

[canetoad]

16. I wonder if he ever accused

Any woman of having fat ankles. Bet he did.

[JoseBalow]

21. I'm sure he has

He's that kind of mean and shallow asshole. That's the kind of thing insecure bullies do to feel better about themselves.

[Pachamama]

37. I recall him (or Enquirer?) making fun of Hillary having "cankles"

Need to find that…

[rampartd]

48. they all used that in 2016

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/decoding-cankles-controversy-hillary-clintons-image-under-rima-akter-5swjf

The "cankles" controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign serves as a notable example of how personal attacks and superficial criticisms can infiltrate political discourse. Examining this issue from various perspectives, we see a complex interplay of sexism, political strategy, media influence, public perception, and the targeted individual's response.

[GoodRaisin]

11. Or the oligarchy has about had their fill of Krasnov.

Ready to move their game on to Vance?

[applegrove]

12. They don't want to be behind obvious Epstein crimes

like Trump is.

[Karasu]

25. Never happening. That ship sailed AGES ago...and this IS the party they want. They have gone out of their way to prove

it time and time again. No one should be doubting this is who they are and who they have always been after the events of the last decade alone.

They deserve nothing less than this monster they have created, and to go down with it.

[applegrove]

30. I agree the GOP owns this all.

[Justice matters.]

38. True that, but at the same time, they don't want a Depression.

They don't care about the working class or about anyone not in their tribe and gated community, but they do care about their own bottom lines...

And the totally incompetent cabinet is doing all it can to provoke a bid bad Depression like almost a hundred years ago...

History repeats when it's lessons are willfully ignored or just distracted.

[Karasu]

56. They claim they don't want a depression, but they have done everything possible to ensure one, purely as a matter of

ideology.

[Skittles]

44. except they are trying very hard to take the country down with them

yes indeed

[Sessuch]

63. Rumor has it that the doctors give him six months.

[Swede]

2. Well my fingers are crossed.

[newdeal2]

4. Agree and that's why this story is important

There's not going to be any justice for Epstein's victims sadly. And Trump's not going to jail for this.

BUT it's starting to create doubt in the mind of the cult. And that can be exploited by people smarter than me to get them away from Trump/MAGA, which is huge.

[returnee]

54. I'll believe it will make a difference...

…when I see it. Will these people who now questioning TSF move right or left? And specifically, left enough to actually support a Democrat? Not holding my breath. Will it change Congressional repubs? That actually seems a bit more likely to me.
YMMV.

[cannabis_flower]

57. Even if

They all stayed home,it would be a win.

[elleng]

7. 'will definitely impact his quality of life.' not so much.

[debm55]

20. just like his ear was blown off

[Mr.WeRP]

23. Guess you're stronger than most, but the Cleveland Clinic disagrees with you

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/16872-chronic-venous-insufficiency-cvi

[elleng]

42. CVI

Chronic venous insufficiency (CVI) can cause a range of symptoms, including leg pain, swelling, and skin changes. These symptoms often worsen when standing or sitting for long periods and improve when legs are elevated. Other common signs include varicose veins, skin discoloration, and ulcers, particularly around the ankles.

Stage 0: No signs that can be seen or felt. You may feel symptoms like achy or tired legs.
Stage 1: Visible blood vessels, including spider veins.
Stage 2: Varicose veins at least 3 millimeters wide.
Stage 3: Edema (swelling) but no skin changes.
Stage 4: Changes to your skin’s color and/or texture.
Stage 5: Healed ulcer.
Stage 6: Acute (active) ulcer.

[Renew Deal]

8. I haven't seen any reliable source saying the "illness" will impact his quality of life.

I've seen people basically call it normal old person stuff.

[H2O Man]

13. True.

It can add to the lowering of quality of life that many people that make it to old age experience. But there are also plenty of old people in far better physical shape than many high school students. It likely wouldn't decrease their quality much, if at all.

[Skittles]

18. maybe a normal person

a narcissist pretending to be president? HUGE hit

[Mr.WeRP]

24. Cleveland Clinic says so

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/16872-chronic-venous-insufficiency-cvi

[Moostache]

52. "Normal Old person stuff"?

Sounds suspiciously like "died of natural causes" to me...

[bdamomma]

10. Well

he has been looking like crap. He is not well. Too bad

[democratsruletheday]

31. Ya think? Dude looks like Pizza the Hut from Spaceballs....

he's a melting heap of old shit. Fucker is suffering and I'm here for it....

[Skittles]

36. on the one hand I feel bad cheering the suffering of another

on the other hand......I just cannot help it

[Ars Longa]

14. What we may be seeing, is the very embryonic begginnings

of the jockeying for power & influence, in a "Post Trump MAGA
ecosphere". The Epstein stuff might be a good way for these media
personalities to test the waters of this distancing from Trump..

[BurnDoubt]

15. "... you ever been bit by a dead bee?"

[dweller]

17. End him

👎🏼



✌🏻

[ancianita]

22. And it took a dead sex trafficker to do it.

We did nazi this one coming. One could even call it God's providence.

[AllyCat]

26. Wonder if his cult members will start stuffing their socks

Like they put maxi-pads on their ears and wore diapers over their pants?

[Seinan Sensei]

64. LOL!! Well-played!!

[AllyCat]

68. I do my best

[kimbutgar]

27. Hope and prayers you are correct!

[Mr.WeRP]

28. I'm an atheist.

[wichita]

29. I wish

That were true for me, but my mom believes Trump 100%, that the stupid deep state is after him, and I don't think she'll ever get out of it honestly, and it hurts. It doesn't make sense. She literally can read the tweets where he called his own supporters stupid and weak and all she'll do is pull up OTHER Trump tweets to prove whatever she already wants to believe. It's insane.

I just don't know.

[Picaro]

32. I'm waiting to see if this is permanent

But I believe you’re spot on. Trump stinks of age and decay. He is used up and his schtick hasn’t changed in a long time. Once his zealots snap back to reality the narrative collapses.

[dlk]

33. I think many of the MAGA have known for awhile they're being taken for a ride by a con artist

Epstein gives them what is, in their eyes, a legitimate off ramp.

[regnaD kciN]

34. I'm wondering...

…if this is an out to get Pervert Hoover to decide to “step down” for health reasons, in exchange for a full pardon (including his time before taking office) from Sofa King?

[rubbersole]

35. Once the tax cut passed the oligarchs don't need him and the ignorant immature distractions.

Vance can declare martial law right before the midterms as good as tsf could.

[misanthrope]

46. Yep, once they get the police state infrastructure and info sharing systems in place

Trump's usefulness is done.

[Mr.WeRP]

50. That's why I raised the issue if his health

He is the oldest president elected and he’s pretty much done strangling the government in the bathtub, which has been the goal of the GOP since Reagan. He is discardable now. And Vance is an oligarch puppet who is young enough to last decades if the oligarch wants to further us into a stasis of authoritarian rule.

[HeartsCanHope]

39. So does this vein condition require intravenous treatment?

Doesn't explain the hand to me otherwise. I had my 2nd cataract surgery, and they had trouble finding a vein for the first time in my life. Teased my husband that I looked like I was in "fight club" on the back of my hands--really bruised. Trump's hand sure looks like intravenous I.V. was used and they couldn't find a vein. Also there was the weird comment a while back about how Scalise's wife took care of Scalise after he was shot, and how some wives wouldn't do that, to me implying Melania was a bad wife for not doing the same. Is this just my evil side wishing for Trump having to step down, or what?

[misanthrope]

45. I have been on weekly infused meds for 19 years now

While my arms and hands have held up remarkably well during that time, we all have periods where someone can't get a "good stick." Plus, we've all had elder family members who have had similar occasions. We know what it looks like.

What they are saying about Trump sounds like the same stuff collecting in his diaper.

[HeartsCanHope]

49. You are absolutely right, misanthrope! My husband said last night that it sounds like the movie Dave.

President Mitchell's severe stroke was passed off as a minor stroke in order for his handlers to retain power. They had hired Dave Kovic as a look alike for President Mitchell and are going to pass Dave off as the real President Mitchell.
"We'll start by going on television. We'll admit he had a stroke, but we'll say it was a mild stroke.
- A mild stroke? (President Mitchell is in a coma.)
- Yes.
And he ought to be up and around again sometime soon." (This was the Bob Alexander character speaking to the character Alan Reed.)
What was released to the public was,
"At 10:45 last night, President Mitchell, coming home from the Monroe Hotel where he was giving a speech to the American Legal Counsel suffered what doctors describe as a minor circulatory problem of the head. Reports that he had suffered a severe stroke are erroneous. Doctors report that he should be up and back to his normal schedule soon. Now, let me stress again, this is a minor medical problem. The president has complete use of his faculties and retains full executive authority."

Just as you said, misanthrope. Complete BS from the Trump administration!

[usonian]

51. He's already at Bernie's. Gone in PA, and a robotic chatbot has taken his place. Taxidermy is tough!!!

I'll copy my earlier post here.

See for yourself.
The Hallucinating ChatGPT Presidency
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/29/the-hallucinating-chatgpt-presidency/

This is not the response of someone working from actual knowledge or policy understanding. Instead, it’s precisely how an LLM operates: taking a prompt (the question about job losses) and generating text based on some core parameters (the “system prompt” that requires deflecting blame and asserting greatness).

The hallmarks of AI generation are all here:
• Confident assertions without factual backing
• Meandering diversions that maintain loose semantic connection to the topic
• Pattern-matching to previous responses (“ripped off,” “billions of dollars”)
• Optimization for what sounds good rather than what’s true

Just as an LLM will confidently generate plausible-sounding text without any real understanding, Trump generates responses that sound like answers while avoiding any engagement with the actual substance of the questions.

He doesn’t answer the actual questions. He doesn’t address the actual points. He doesn’t understand what’s actually going on, so he crafts a rambling nonsensical answer based loosely on the question, while following the system prompt’s instructions to make sure the answer makes himself look good.

[Escape]

53. There isn't anything Trump could do---

including dying----that would cause his followers to turn away from him.

If he died they would gleefully await his resurrection and line up to buy his "post-Earthtime" trinkets, T-shirts and gadgets.

They are humanoid in form, but lacking any semblance of intelligence or rational thinking.

They are never going to suddenly REALIZE REALITY. Their opinions and their minds will never be changed by events, facts or truth.

Expecting them to "come around" is like thinking your dog might someday learn to drive your car.

[58Sunliner]

59. I don't know that it will get better, unfortunately.

This is coordinated. Too many are speaking up.

[Jarqui]

60. Et tu Brute was always in the cards for Trump

Trump did not attain the Oval office on his own.
He did not remain through two impeachments on his own.
He did not get reelected on his own.
A lot of money , a lot of powerful people and the few who control the US media had a big hand in it.
Trump has had enablers since he threw his hat into the political ring.
The enablers can remove Trump.
And they probably will do it in a way that gives them new life.
The MAGAts dumb enough to fall for Trump will fall for whatever spin the enablers give it.

[dlk]

61. Epstein was the final straw...

n/t

[LiberalBrooke]

62. They are ready to install Vance.

I think that was the plan all along.

[Seinan Sensei]

65. Vance will replace Steven Miller

with Curtis Yarvin

[pat_k]

66. And as the spell breaks for some, let's extend a little grace.

No forgiveness in advance, but I firmly believe the "never forgive, never forget" sentiment and shaming, hateful rhetoric directed at 47 voters that is so widespread is seriously problematic. As long as MAGA as a cult, or a MAGA individual, is immorally attacking our core values, we must defend ourselves and be loud and proud about what those values are. But I wish more of us would learn to do it without the rhetorical violence against "them."

Food for thought on understanding the cult and some closing advice from Jayne Converse in this short 5 min video:

....Shame is too powerful, so they double-down, like trump does. Some trump supporters know deep down they've been conned. They've seen the cruelty, the corruption, the chaos, but they've already invested years of their indentity into defending him. To walk away now would mean confronting shame, losing their community, admitting they were wrong. And that is terrifying to them. So instead, they dig in deeper...

Not everyone in that cult is unreachable. Some are too far gone. Some are on the edge. Quiet. Doubting. Hurting. We don't get them back with facts. We get them back by offering something Trump never will: real community, real care, and real solutions... Offer people a way out that doesn't begin with shame, but with dignity... This fight isn't just about defeating Trump. It's about breaking the spell and building something better in its place.

Points along the same lines were made by Sarah McBride (1st trans U.S. Congressperson) in an interview shortly after she was sworn in.

...This country is still at a trans 101 spot... Leaders should always be out front of public opinion, but in order to foster change in public opinion we've got to be within arms distance of the public, so we can pull the along with us. If we get too out ahead of it we lose our grip and are unable to pull the public along with us... There is a space for diversity of messengers, and a diversity of message... What we do know is that as the movement for marriage equality moved forward, the most effective messengers for marriage were not same sex couples, were not parents of same sex couples or kids of same sex couples, the most effective messengers for marriage equality were those that evolved. They were effective because they gave a permission structure for people who had not yet gotten there that it was ok to be uncomfortable, it was ok to be on the other side of the issue. You were not a bad person, you weren't wrong. And by giving people permission to be wrong, it created the space and grace for people to grow. We need more grace in our politics if we want people to actually grow...

We are shooting ourselves in the foot as people who believe in progress when we create no incentive for people to grow because they perceive they will be permanently guilty for having been wrong. We create no space for them to grow by extending no grace for them to walk there...

One of the reasons you see people pushed into their respective corners -- you say something that's deemed problematic. And you are immediately hounded by one side and immediately embraced by the other side. Human nature is -- when faced with that degree of extreme binary reactions is to go to the people who are validating you instantaneously. So we unintentionally push people further and further into their own corners and into their negative opinion by responding with a degree of condemnation and vitriol that creates no incentive or space for them to grow...

NVC (Marshall Rosenberg's non-violent communication) skills can be useful. It's not specifically designed for communicating with cult adherents or across ideological divides, but the principles are powerful in all sorts of conflict resolution situations. There are NVC practice groups online and in some locations, in person.

[SpankMe]

67. What should happen now

This situation presents an opportunity. Democrats can quietly organize teams of trolls to go onto all social media and make posts and spread doubt and inflammatory narratives that fracture the MAGA coalition even further. Pit them against each other. We have to play a little dirty if we're going to break the cabal. Being nice, honest and forthright isn't helping. Responding to MAGA threats of terror, violence and oppression with kitchen table economic issues won't work. There'll be a time for that. But, it's not now.

Republicans have been benefitting from rage-generating divisive attacks for years. This misinformation campaign has fractured the Democratic coalition and united the right. I'm not talking about anti-Trump messaging. I'm talking about posing as MAGA online and planting rhetorical IED's in social media that gets them arguing with each other.