Blog 3798 – 04.16.2026

Foolishness

The old adage goes, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” We have all been fooled at one time or another in our lives. But, continuing to play the fool instead of owning up to our own gullibility is I think is perhaps the greatest foolish of all. Many especially older people fall victim to scams that cheat them out of their life saving and often do not report it because they are embarrassed to have been so duped. 

As embarrassing as admitting we have been fooled is, we have a responsibility to own up to it and expose the fraud if for no other reason than to prevent others from being taken in. Failing to do so only enables scammers and conmen to continue making fools of us all.

Yesterday two U.S. Congressmen resigned in disgrace after charges of sexual impropriety were brought against them, one a Democrat and one a Republican. And yet many people continue to support and defend a man they know has done far worse than those two Congressmen. A man who I believe and many others do as well, started an illegitimate war to get our attention off of the “Trump – Epstein Files.” 

The scene in The Wizard Oz movie comes to mind where the Great and Powerful Oz is trying to avoid keeping his promise to Dorothy and her companions and loudly and with great display tries to send them away empty-handed after they have successfully defeated the wicked witch which was his condition for helping them. They are trembling in fear before him and Toto, Dorothy’s little dog, runs over to the side and pulls back a curtain revealing the little con-man pulling levers and yelling into a microphone. Then Oz the Magnificent booms, “Pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain.”

I heard a man mix his metaphors a bit last night talking about how even some people in our Dear Leader’s MAGA base are beginning to realize that the Wizard has no clothes. I think he meant to say, “The Emperor has no clothes” from another children’s book. His message was clear, “There is nothing to see here, but a little man pretending to be a big man.”

One of our truly great Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

No matter his almost continuous stream of lies, constant self-aggrandizement, scandalous behavior, Donald Trump may continue to fool some of the people, but his days of fooling a majority of the people are over and more and more of those once completely fooled by him are waking up to just how petty, corrupt, and small he really is. His tactic of projecting, distracting, firing people and using them as scapegoats for his own failed policies is no longer working. 

It remains to be seen what desperate attempts he may try to hold on to power and avoid answering for the scam he has perpetrated on this country and the world. Many of us remember what he said and did on January 6th, 2021. And he is still trying to rewrite the history of that day and saying that anyone who disagrees with his attempt to make himself an Emperor, an Oz, or a Hero worthy of an Arch De Trump on the Washington Mall is suffering from a new disease – TDS, Trump Derangement Syndrome. What fools he thinks we all are.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White