How To Build A Monster: The Man-Child Goblins Who Never Heard “No”
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
We’re seeing the results of raising wealthy mediocre men in a bubble—a bubble free of pesky limitations to their horrendous behavior. A rarefied place from which they were never taught the barest of consequences for terrible actions. These were the kinds of boys who had all of their misbehavior explained away and then someone else swooped in to clean up the mess, as if it never happened. Whether we are speaking of Trump, of ex-Prince Andrew, that creepy ass son of Norway’s crown princess, or hell, certain members of our Supreme Court, the oligarchs have lived protected lives free from repercussions. It’s as if you take a young boy, perhaps one with antisocial and narcissistic tendencies to begin with, and you give him everything he wants–you never correct cruel behavior and in fact actively blame his victims at the hint of any consequences. This informal scientific experiment gives you a problem not just for the immediate victims of the man-boy, but for society as a whole. These boys grow up having never felt the most basic human condition, that of consequences. And in a society based on exploitation and subjugation, these are the very men who thrive and generally find themselves in amplified positions of power.
How does a man who has been at the helm of six corporate bankruptcies land a television show that glamorizes him as a titan of industry? How does a man brag about grabbing women by the pussy and declare that he would date his daughter, if you know, she wasn’t his daughter, not get met with vomit? How does a man who married three times, with kids from all these different baby mommas proclaim himself the protector of family values? Do a thought experiment and try to imagine a woman, hell, how about a woman of color, saying any of these things. Would she have had a political career? Would she have landed anywhere outside of perhaps an involuntary lobotomy? We are shaking our heads at the trauma being inflicted upon us as a nation, even internationally, from men like this, but how else would the story end when you allow such an upbringing and such acquiescence to cruelty? It is ludicrous to have allowed such creatures any type of power; they simply don’t have the emotional maturity or learned/inherent decency to be trusted with a task like taking out the trash on Monday. They can’t even be trusted not to attack the babysitter. They claim the Inuit had a solution for men such as this. They took them out “fishing,” and sometimes they didn’t come home. I’m sure they left them some nice place to live out their lives, of course.
That one brother in the Trump family who sounds as if he were a decent man, well, we know what happened to him. He was considered a black sheep for being…a major airline pilot. Yeah, that’s a terribly embarrassing occupation among a family of racist real estate slumlords—ones so bad that Woody Guthrie wrote “Old Man Trump” about their shit behavior. But Donald was golden and was given treasure after treasure from his rotten old daddy. No failure was too messy; all was forgiven as long as the aggressive bravado was maintained. That other brother drank himself to death. That family selected for pathology and celebrated it, and now it’s all our problem.
So anyway, we have 14 seasons of that insipid show celebrating the failed business-monster. They say a time traveler might go back and find Baby Hitler and well, you know, but maybe those time travelers should be looking for Baby Mark Burnett, and you know, uh……. talk that baby out of future life choices.
In a similar vein, we have ex-Prince Andrew Castlebottom-Mountbatten-Windsor-PedoPastyFace of the Three Gorges of Dragonfornication living out his best life for around 60 years. A man that Princess Diana said was very happy to sit in front of the television all day watching cartoons. She also said that he was loud, aggressive and rude, so of course, he would be the Queen’s favorite. A stupid, crass oaf given the chance to be aggressive with staff, to never work a true day in his life? What could go wrong? Oh yeah, Virginia Giuffre ends up dead, there’s that.
But we let these men thrive for so long, and we elevate them to heights of power. So many were comfortable with Trump’s behavior because that’s what they know from their own flawed upbringings. I’ll never forget hearing a woman say in response to the “grab them by the pussy” issue that this was just how men talk and she was resigned to that fact. We have resigned ourselves to the fact that these types of men do talk like that and their actions follow. We have for so long accepted that these are the men to lord over us. It’s as if most of the populace has a learned helplessness against these monstrous fellows. Perhaps so many have been in abusive situations where they were unable to extract themselves…think abused children with a violent patriarch, and this becomes the norm they accept because it’s what they know. They believe hierarchy is natural and some people simply count more than others. This one sick belief is the wellspring of all that is wrong.
Small and aggressive men have treated women this way in exponential numbers throughout history. Look at the intimate partner violence stats. Trump’s regime is very much treating the nation and the world in a manner similar to an abusive partner. First, you isolate the victims (purposefully alienate all other nations so the people of the US are alone). You make them think they don’t deserve much of anything, say universal health care, a living wage, a life free from an oncology soup of chemicals. You gaslight the hell out of them until they can’t even figure out what is true and what is not. Then you have a hollowed-out shell of a person, of a citizen. An individual is completely ready to believe any nonsense dished out, because to them, that surrender equals a misguided notion of safety.
And if we keep producing these man-children who view the world as little more than toys to break, we will all become broken and our world will find a way to erase us. Nature feels no such need to acquiesce to man-children. You cannot let the worst of the worst continue to hold positions of wealth and power and expect any conclusion but disaster. If we look at this situation with clear eyes, the very idiocy of listening to these types of individuals is overwhelmingly clear.
Even if these men have not faced significant consequences over the years, it is now a time of reckoning. Andrew is getting a tiny taste of these repercussions, and we must make sure to expand on this and no longer normalize any of the rapist mentality that is ruining the lives of 99% of the globe.
We live on this earth, a place so painfully beautiful and pregnant with all of our highest potential. To see a future of meaning and love, these man-child goblins need to be relegated to the painful past.
The Art of the Steal and the Privatization of the Presidency
Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain
In his State of the Union address, President Trump declared that America is entering a “Golden Age.” Golden for whom?
For a president who lives lavishly in a taxpayer-funded mansion, jets around to weekend golf getaways at taxpayer expense, and dismisses concerns about “affordability” as fake news, life might indeed be gilded.
For the rest of the country, it is fool’s gold.
Nearly six-in-ten Americans say the country is worse off now than it was a year ago. Groceries cost more. Utilities cost more. Housing costs more.
For millions of families, this is not a golden age.
It is a painful lesson in imperial economics: the billionaire class lives large while “we the people” are told to live small.
Trump is not working to make America great again. He is working to expand his wealth, protect his investments, and rule in gilded comfort at taxpayer expense.
As a candidate, Trump promised to “drain the swamp.”
Instead, the swamp has been privatized.
When it comes to the true state of our nation, Americans would do well to examine not just what the Trump administration has accomplished—or failed to accomplish—but who has profited.
The highest public office in the land has become a personal revenue stream for Donald Trump & Co.—a vehicle for private enrichment that monetizes access, influence and public assets while the public pays the tab.
To monetize the presidency is to treat public power as property—something to be leased, leveraged and exploited for private gain.
This is how you bilk a nation.
The man who once lent his name to the ghostwritten The Art of the Deal is now authoring a far more instructive manual: The Art of the Steal—a step-by-step guide to how to convert a constitutional republic into a personal brand.
According to the New York Times Editorial Board, “Trump has used the office of the presidency to make at least $1.4 billion… All told, Mr. Trump has profited from his return to the presidency by an amount of money equal to 16,822 times the median U.S. household income.”
Power attracts conmen and swindlers. It always has. But never has the grift been so openly institutionalized.
Just consider the entries in this administration’s ledger.
Personal indulgence and vanity projects:
$400 million and counting for a White House ballroom underwritten by corporate giants whose regulatory futures sit squarely in presidential hands.
$70 million for a luxury jet with a private bedroom so DHS secretary Kristi Noem can fly around in comfort with her rumored partner.
$28 million for an Amazon documentary on Melania Trump.
Tens of millions for Trump’s weekend golf trips to Mar-a-Lago, including what he charges the American taxpayer for the Secret Service to be housed at the resort.
Policy decisions that generate revenue or leverage:
Billions in stealth taxes disguised as “emergency” tariff revenues paid for by the American people. According to NPR, the federal government is now collecting roughly $30 billion per month in tariff revenue—far more than it collected from import taxes before Trump returned to office—largely paid for by American consumers. So when Trump tries to sell Americans on the idea that tariffs could eventually replace income taxes—a clear bid to overturn the Supreme Court’s ruling against his tariff policy—don’t believe it. That’s just another money grab.
A $10 billion taxpayer buy-in to a privatized Board of Peace created and controlled by Trump in perpetuity with no real oversight or accountability.
$230 million in damages Trump claims he is owed over investigations into his own past misconduct.
Another $10 billion in damages which Trump claims he is owed after an IRS contractor was convicted of leaking his tax information.
Millions in trademark rights and licensing fees tied to Trump’s name on public infrastructure. As trademark attorney Josh Gerben notes, “The move raises unusual questions about the intersection of public infrastructure and private brand ownership. While presidents and public officials have had landmarks named in their honor, a sitting president’s private company has never in the history of the United States sought trademark rights in advance of such naming.”
At least $23 million from licensing Trump’s name overseas since his re-election.
$4 billion flowing into Trump family coffers in the first year of his second term, including $867 million through cryptocurrency ventures.
Public money redirected toward private allies and enforcement expansion:
$128 million for an ICE warehouse purchased three years earlier for $29 million—a $100 million markup benefiting a Russian-backed company.
$15 million earmarked to feed starving children internationally, which was instead impounded for OMB director Russell Vought’s security detail.
$51 billion in taxes not paid by Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Tesla in 2025 after receiving a 4.9% tax rate.
A $10 billion government contract between the Army and Palantir, founded by Trump supporter Peter Thiel.
Foreign entanglements and gifts:
A $400 million luxury plane from the Qatari government, which will be retrofitted at taxpayer expense for Trump’s official use as Air Force One and which he plans to take with him when he leaves office.
Hundreds of millions more from foreign government-linked investors gaining access through the purchase of the Trump family’s cryptocurrency ventures.
These are not isolated expenditures. They reveal a pattern.
They speak to the blueprint Trump has used to monetize his stint in the White House.
The Founders anticipated precisely this danger: a president tempted to convert public trust into private profit. The Constitution’s Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clauses were intended to prevent a president from profiting from office.
With Congress unwilling to enforce the Constitution and the courts slow to intervene, these guardrails have weakened.
As the Brennan Center concludes, “Not even the most notorious public corruption scandals from American history can match the scale of Trump’s profiteering in terms of total dollar amount.”
This is how access to power is sold to the highest bidders.
The American system of government was designed as a constitutional covenant: power delegated, limited, and bound by law.
What we are witnessing is transactional governance: access traded, favors exchanged, loyalty rewarded, and policy negotiated like a business deal.
This pay-to-play culture now permeates the highest levels of power.
The U.S. government is fast becoming a self-serving, money-laundering enterprise masquerading as legitimate authority.
The choice before us is not partisan. It is constitutional.
A republic cannot survive when public office becomes private property.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is how republics fall.
It is time to drain the swamp.
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