6 Comments
User's avatar
Andrea Stoeckel (she/her/hers)'s avatar

So why in hell hasn't this already been done. I'm a former nursing home administrator with patients in Memory Care with better cognitive health than he has

May Ruth Lambert, APRN's avatar

This should not be happening and today he is threatening civilian genocide. We should not be allowing this. The Hague needs to arrest him. Who will stop this? It must be stopped now! This is an illegal war and should not even be happening. Where are the guardrails?

Sooz's avatar

Thank you for keeping us informed!!

Jay Wilson's avatar

Many mental health professionals are saying Trump is exhibiting all the symptoms of frontotemporal dementia -the exact cognitive circuitry you want to be rock-solid in someone who has the power to start wars, mess with the markets, and put the whole world on edge.

Combine a deteriorating frontal system with an already damaged personality wired for dominance, grievance, and spectacle, and it’s not called “normal aging.” You get a government run by the ID of a diseased mind — with nukes. And that’s a f***in' national security problem.

My take on FTD:

https://jaywilson1.substack.com/p/its-not-about-the-flowers?r=10sd39

Gordon Reynolds's avatar

Someone needs to make a Trump voodoo doll. And we all need to buy one.

Ross Boulton's avatar

The Institutional Files has always written from inside the institution — the compliance officer, the attorney, the interpreter, the auditor. Narrators who follow procedure correctly while the system does something else entirely.

Step Right Up is the system itself speaking.

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

STEP RIGHT UP

Folks, let me tell you, and I know carnivals, I’ve built carnivals, nobody builds carnivals like I do, the best carnivals, people come up to me with tears in their eyes and they say sir, this is the greatest carnival I have ever seen in my life, and I believe them, I do, because I need to, because what I see in their faces is the only mirror that shows me what I know I am —

Step right up.

Now they said it couldn’t be done. The fake news said the rides weren’t safe, the fake news said the permits were irregular, the fake news said the welds were — and I don’t even want to say what they said about the welds, I really don’t, because once I say it you’ll be thinking about it, and that’s what they want, that’s exactly what they want, so I won’t say it, I will not say it, the welds are beautiful —

Step right up.

The height requirement is very simple. You have to be this tall. That’s it. Some people aren’t that tall yet. Come back. We’ll see. Bring documentation. Not that documentation. The other documentation. We’ll tell you which documentation when you get here. There will be a form. The form will reference another form. That form has been discontinued. There is a replacement form. Bring both.

Step right up.

The roller coaster is incredible, it’s a beautiful machine, goes very fast and then very slow and some people get sick and those people are weak, strong people love this ride, they ride it twice, they can’t stop riding it, they say sir, can we ride it again, and I say yes, get back in line, and they do, they always do —

Step right up.

The safety bar. I’m always honest, that’s one of my things, the honesty — the safety bar is more of a suggestion. Not a hard rule. Soft rule. The inspector, great guy, he used to work for the other people but now he works for us, he checked it, he signed off, his name is on the report, his name is on all the reports —

Step right up.

They want to shut us down. People who have never built anything, never created anything, who sit in their offices writing their little regulations while we’re out here making something beautiful — they want the courts and the newspapers and the universities and the legal definition of a family put back the way they were, when the wrong people ran them, when your voice didn’t matter, when this whole beautiful machine was pointed at you instead of for you, which is what we call it now, for you, and the name is the only thing we changed —

Step right up.

Now this is just between us, just between me and this crowd, and I love this crowd — we’re only here for a limited time. Very limited. We move on Sunday. Maybe sooner. The trucks are already warm. The people who built this, who carried the lumber and poured the concrete and put up the lights — they’re not on the trucks. But the music is very good. It was always very good. That’s why you’re still here.

Buy your ticket now.

Cash only.

Non-refundable.

★★★★★ — A REVIEW, FROM A VERY IMPORTANT READER

They wrote a little story about me. A little story. Very nasty. You probably didn’t see it — nobody saw it, readership very low, terrible numbers — but my people showed it to me and I read it. The whole thing. Which I didn’t have to do. Very busy man. Probably the busiest man in history. But I read it.

Step Right Up. That’s what they called it. Like a carnival. Like I’m some kind of carnival barker. And I said, you know what, that’s actually a great name. The greatest show in the history of this country. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. Best show ever.

And these people, these writers, with their little stories and their little forms — they have the forms in there, very nasty, very unfair — they don’t understand what’s happening. They never understood. Wrong in 2016. Wrong in 2020, which we won by the way, won it big. Wrong in 2024. Wrong now.

The courts are fine. The safety bar is fine. The inspector — great guy, terrific guy, very loyal — he checked it. Signed off. His name is on everything. Everything’s fine. The numbers are incredible. Best numbers ever. Unemployment down. Iran defeated. Stock market through the roof. Fake news won’t report it. Sad.

Step Right Up. I love it. I’m going to use that.

That’s mine now.

★★★★★

Ross Boulton writes The Institutional Files — fiction about systems that were always pointed at you.

amazon.com/author/ross.boulton