Keeping Grandpa Snoozy Happy With Participation Prizes

While Donald Trump may brag about all the MRIs he has passed, it's not hard to see that his health is going downhill fast.

His public schedule is light: he is often at his golf clubs, has traveled around the country less frequently than at this point in his first term, and now only rarely holds the stadium rallies that once defined his preferred style of politics. He tends to sit, even when others are standing, and has shortened his daily schedule, often not conducting official duties before noon.

Even with fewer and shorter days in the office, Trump seems to be worn out. His public appearances are increasingly rare, and he has sometimes disappeared from view long enough to make many Americans ... hopeful.

Still, Stephen Miller, J. D. Vance, Ben Shapiro, and the whole cast of chuckling billionaires know they can get Trump to auto-scrawl on anything, so long as they let Grandpa Snoozy do the things that make him happy: Put his name on buildings, play with gold-plated crap, and murder foreigners.

Trump frequently claims that President Joe Biden overused an "autopen" to reproduce his signature. Trump doesn't do that.

Trump is an autopen.

Asked about his pardon of Juan Hernández, the former president of Honduras convicted of bringing hundreds of tons to the United States, Trump's initial reply was, "Well, I don’t know who you’re talking about." He then went on to give this explanation of why he gave a waiver to a genuine drug dealer while he was using drugs as an excuse to bomb fishermen.

“Well, I was told—I was asked by Honduras, many of the people of Honduras, they said it was a Biden setup—I don’t mean Biden, look, Biden didn’t know he was alive—but it was the people that surround the Resolute Desk. Surround Biden, when he was there, which was about very little time."

Asked about his pardon of Changpeng Zhao, a billionaire cryptocurrency exchange founder connected to Trump's own crypto coin, Trump said, "I know nothing about it."

As expected, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson showed that Congress is deeply concerned about presidents not being fully informed and knowledgeable about Trump's pardons.

Trump also claims to have pardoned people he can't pardon, even though he never signed a pardon.

But it's not just pardons where Trump is too busy touching up his increasingly heavy makeup to notice what's being plopped onto the Resolute Desk. Asked about his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to justify assaults on immigrants, Trump said, "I don’t know when it was signed, because I didn’t sign it." Except he very much did. The order, along with Trump's signature, is recorded in the Federal Register.

Trump's team doesn't need an autopen. They know Trump will reliably plant his pubic signature on anything they put in front of him without bothering to read it. Which is good, because it's increasingly difficult to keep Trump awake, even when people are busy kissing his ass. He's falling asleep in cabinet meetings, during press events in the Oval Office, and even while signing an order to reschedule marijuana.

Obviously, Santa needs to stuff more goodies down Trump's chimney so he can stay conscious long enough to keep being an enabler. To that end, on Thursday, the White House announced that the "very distinguished board members" had held a surprise vote to rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts" to the "Trump Kennedy Center."

It was, as the White House, a unanimous decision.

It's also not legal. Congress named the center for Kennedy in 1964 as a memorial for the recently assassinated president. It would take another act of Congress to rename the center.

That didn't stop the sycophants Trump planted on the "very distinguished" board–White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, Special Presidential Envoy Richard Grenell, J.D. Vance's wife Usha Vance, and conspiracy maven Laura Ingraham—from having the website changed to say "Trump Kennedy Center" by Thursday afternoon.

You can bet that some big shiny letters will be planted on the building within hours, just like the ones already glued to the U.S. Institute of Peace.

The Trump administration has renamed the U.S. Institute of Peace after President Donald Trump and has planted the president’s name on its headquarters despite an ongoing fight over control of the institute.

The U.S. Institute for Peace is an independent non-profit think tank that was established by Congress over 40 years ago, before being largely gutted by the Elon Musk-helmed DOGE. Then Trump slapped his name on the empty shell. As White House spokesperson Anna Kelly wrote when making the announcement, “Congratulations, world!”

When he's not putting his name on buildings, Trump also keeps busy labeling things inside buildings.

Of course, it may not have been Trump who put up this particular sign. His staff may have grown tired of him wandering the halls in an attempt to locate his chair.

Where there's no signage, Trump has filled the once dignified halls of the People's House with a collection of tasteless trash that wouldn't meet the standards of a truck stop restroom.

And of course, Trump loves it when people hand him free chunks of gold disguised as awards, especially people who have business before the government.

And of course, he's getting to kill people. Lots of people. That's been one of Trump's big dreams since at least 1989. When Trump fantasizes about getting away with anything he wants, where do his thoughts go first? We've known since 2016.

"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?" Trump remarked at a campaign stop at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa. "It's, like, incredible."

Now Pete Hegseth delivers fresh snuff films to Trump on a regular basis. He's gotten to watch at least 28 boats blown to smithereens, resulting in at least 104 deaths, just since September. It's enough to satisfy any serial killer's itch.

Trump has his murders, his gold, and his name in big letters. The oil companies get a promise of Venezuela's oil. Billionaires get trillions in tax breaks. The tech bros get free rein to roll the dice on the apocalypse. And Trump's family and friends get pardons for crimes and corruption.

All of them are perfectly happy to let Trump snooze

As Trump's 18 minutes of shouting lies illustrated this week, he's not even capable of following a short script, and his team can't be bothered to give a damn. Trump isn't pretending to roll out health care or deliver on economic promises. He's just telling America to sit down and stay quiet while his buddies finish mopping up all the loose change.

Just put his hand over there, guys. Now, up and down and up and down, and ... good enough.