On Sunday May 31, 2026, a week from the day on which I write this introspection, Colombians will head to the polls for a presidential election. In Colombia as in much of the world, the electoral process is less controversial than in the United States, with participatory rights carefully monitored through required identification through official, state issued identification documents. Also, in Colombia, if a candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, he or she will be the victor, if not, the top two vote recipients will face off in a runoff on the 21st of June. In Colombian the candidate with less votes never wins, as happens from time to time in the United States, although how votes are counted may impact that observation, as it did with respect to the manipulated, well, perhaps stolen is a more honest term, election that took place in Colombia on the 19th of April in 1970. However, notwithstanding precautions, as in much of the world the electorate’s confidence in electoral integrity may be at a low point and that because, as in the United States, information manipulation is rampant.
In that regard, the primary election for the selection of a Republican candidate for the House of Representatives from the State of Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District is illustrative as to how massive infusions of cash can distort the vote through massive albeit temporary increases in questionable participation. To be fair, the same was probably the case in recent senatorial elections in the State of Georgia so it’s a bipartisan phenomenon. It may also have been the case in the United States’ presidential election of 2020 (which reflected massive but subsequently not duplicated electoral participation). So, what does Mr. Massie’s improbable defeat in Kentucky have to do with Colombian presidential elections about to take place?
Well, Mr. Massie was defeated by massive infusions of cash orchestrated by groups aligned with a foreign government, the State of Israel to be specific, and the State of Israel is very interested in the results of the presidential election in Colombia, as it was in the last presidential election in Argentina, and in Honduras and in El Salvador and in Bolivia and throughout Latin America, especially in those countries that have proven to be critics of Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing. In those countries, money illegally provided by Israel or Israeli supporters made the difference between the election of a progressive popular government and the victors, all governments led by admirers of current United States president Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Two of the three leading candidates for the Colombian presidency are also admirers of Messrs. Trump and Netanyahu and, as in the case of the aforementioned Latin American countries, have been able to spend massive amounts of money on their campaigns, albeit not necessarily directly. Somehow, social media has proven extremely kind to them, even beyond the posts admittedly paid for by them and their supporters (as was the case in Mr. Massie’s Kentucky primary election). Indeed, attribution to the sponsors of the most outlandish Colombian posts is almost impossible to ascertain.… Almost as though they involved intelligence agency professionals.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, neither of the pro-Zionist Colombian candidates currently leads the electoral pack. That position is held by Senator Iván Cepeda Castro, a progressive follower of current Colombian president Gustavo Francisco Petro Urrego, a vocal critic of genocide and ethnic cleansing. He has comfortably led throughout the electoral campaign in all reliable polls (although the term “reliable” with reference to polls may be an oxymoron). His two chief competitors are Abelardo Gabriel de la Espriella Otero and Paloma Susana Valencia Laserna, both right wing politicians although Ms. Valencia has tried to capture some of the political center by ironically selecting as her running mate a gay male, Juan Daniel Oviedo Arango. Ironic because Ms. Valencia has always been opposed to most LGBT+ issues but, as the ubiquitous “they” say “politics makes strange bedfellows”. Mr. de la Espriella is a successful albeit unsavory lawyer having represented the worst elements of Colombian society including paramilitary death squad leaders and corrupt politicians. He refers to himself as “el Tigre”, employs a sharp military salute whenever possible (despite, like Mr. Trump, having “legally” avoided compulsory military service) and is bereft of any government experience, running as an “outsider”. Ms. Valencia on the other hand is from a prominent Colombian political family, has been a member of Congress for a long time and was personally selected as a candidate by former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe Velez. She enjoys the support of most traditional political parties and politicians although party members in some cases, especially with respect to the Liberal Party, have refused to accept the decision of their party’s leaders. In addition to the three front runners there are numerous other candidates, some of whom are well known, but none has more than a 3% following in recent polls.
Currently Mr. Cepeda, whose father was a Colombian senator assassinated by paramilitaries (such as those represented by Mr. de la Espriella) leads Mr. de La Espriella by more than 10% and Ms. Valencia by well over 20% but the sum of Mr. de la Espriella’s numbers and those of Ms. Valencia roughly equal those of Mr. Cepeda thus, while Mr. Cepeda is close to the 50% threshold for victory in the first round of elections, he is not there. That makes a potential second round competitive, given the ideological compatibility of Mr. de la Espriella and Ms. Valencia and their mutual dedication to former president Uribe. That creates an ideal scenario for foreign electoral interference in which both the State of Israel and the United States are clearly participants and rather well experienced.
The question then is, as it was in Kentucky, whether enough voters are willing sell out their country’s interests to foreign states, as voters in other Latin American countries have recently done (and, honestly, as has so often happened in the past) or whether given the disasters that the recently elected Trump and Netanyahu aligned right wing governments have proven to be (contrasted with the success on most fronts of Colombia’s current progressive government), Colombians will prove wiser and more patriotic than their continental counterparts (and also, wiser and more patriotic that the majority of United States’ voters in the State of Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District).
The reaction in the United States to Mr. Massie’s defeat has ranged from smug arrogance on the part of the Israeli-First component of Donald Trump’s MAGA coalition to dismay among those Trump voters who believed that he would prove different than the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) owned presidents of the past half century, something that might lead to a huge electoral reversal for the Republican Party in the United States this November, although the reality is that AIPAC controls both the United States’ Republican and Democratic parties, at least at the leadership levels. The decision in Colombia is likely to impact not only Colombia’s future but also elections in other countries, not least of which might be this autumn’s United States congressional elections, and it might also impact the future of the Middle East, realities of which Colombian voters, for the most part, are blissfully unaware. In the meantime, as has apparently become the norm … everywhere, false news and rabid calumnies fill Colombian airwaves and social media.
So, Sunday, May 31, 2026, perhaps a day to be long remembered; …
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
Gerrymandering is now completely out of control thanks to the GOP, the Democrats and the politicized judiciary. The only practical solution is one adopted by most countries in the world and that is multi-legislator districts, preferably on a state wide basis, with proportional representation. How would that work? Or better yet, how does it work successfully in so many places.
Well, take California with, I believe, 55 representatives elected to the House of Representatives. Each California voter would have 55 votes which he or she could allocate to a single candidate (55) or divide among a number of candidates. As an illustration, if a voter wanted to allocate his or her votes equally among eleven candidates, each would receive five votes, or the 55 votes could be distributed among the eleven candidates in any manner the voter deemed appropriate. Or the voter could provide one vote each to 55 candidates. California, with the largest representation in the House is the most complex example, states with less representation would be inversely simpler. It is, in essence, what happens in the states that only elect one member to the House, it is a statewide contest with no gerrymandering possible.
To make things easier, California and other states with large House membership could be divided into smaller voting districts. In the California case for example, it could be divided into five voting districts, each electing eleven legislators, While that would still permit efforts to distort the vote through gerrymandering, it would be more difficult to do so and less efficient, but in any case, much better that the single member system we have now. And it can be implemented on a state by state basis through local legislation rather than on a federal level which would, in my opinion, require a constitutional amendment. The latter might be the best solution for the long term but harder to implement.
Something to consider for those who really care about electoral integrity rather than merely about maximizing the power of the political party to which they have become subservient. _____
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
In the United States there are sacrosanct symbols, especially the Constitution and the Flag, perhaps also the armed forces. All public officers are required to take a solemn oath to protect and defend the Constitution; the citizenry at large is, at one time or another, required to do so in the form of the “Pledge of Allegiance” but I believe all of the foregoing are a mistake. I believe it is a mistake because oaths are, or should be, not only solemn but sacred with consequences, serious consequences for their violation[1]. And the reality is that, as in the case of “sacred scriptures”, most people honor their oaths superficially, very visibly and audibly, but not profoundly. Exceptions are the rule.
Take the Constitution. The version promulgated in 1787 has been officially amended twenty-seven times, although amendments have sometimes cancelled each other out, for example, the 21st amendment repealed the 18th, and the 20th, 22nd, 23rd, and 25th amendments all redefined the election and succession processes. However, unofficially, via purported “interpretation”, the Constitution has been amended thousands of times and each of the latter involves a violation of related sacred oaths. The decision by John Marshall in the case of Marbury versus Madison where the concept of constitutional review was usurped by the Supreme Court[2] is a prime example but so was the Civil War (more accurately perhaps, the War Between the States). The 16th and 17th amendments fundamentally altered the federal nature of the republic created by the Constitution as did, in a sense, the 13th, 14th, 15th, 18th and 19th each of which, in one sense or another, shifted power from the states to the federal government[3].
That violations of the sacred oaths involved may have been morally justified only emphasizes that the oaths to defend, preserve and uphold the Constitution should never have been required in the first place, especially given that the United States of America was founded on the principle of the propriety of oath breaking when circumstances deemed such violations of sacred honor justified. All of the “Founding Father” broke their sacred oaths of allegiance to the British Crown. In that respect, the case of Benedict Arnold is particularly meaningful raising the issue of which was worse, his initial violation of his oath to King George III or his violation of his subsequent oath to the Continental Congress? And what of Robert E. Lee, placed in the impossible situation of either violating his oath to the federal government (which had, in effect, suspended the Constitution to which the oath had been made) or his oath to the State of Virginia? Or what about Abraham Lincoln who clearly violated his oath to the Constitution in existence at the time he first took his oath of office and, of course, his pervious oaths as a Congressman and military officer which have been justified, properly perhaps, as required in order to fulfill his aspirations for a more just and powerful Union?
In my opinion, the only oath we should take is not to intangible symbols, usually too complex to comprehend and usually contradictory as well, but to “We the People”, a noble sociological and civic complex of interrelationships to which the symbols we revere should be inextricably bound. But “We the People” is also a complex and frequently incoherent concept that seeks to meld contradictory beliefs such as “democracy” (the will of the majority), “liberty” (the autonomy of the individual, no matter what a majority believes) and pluralism (the protection of minorities in a quest for equality and equity) as well as to the amorphous, frequently contradictory concepts of legality versus justice; to due process and equal protection, to freedom of conscience, of expression and of assembly. And what of the human tendency towards evolution? Not only biologically but morally and ethically. That which a society in one instant seeks to crystalize soon becomes calcified and obsolete. Should a society be entitled to bind a future society through oaths to values that may become anachronistic?
Some of the concepts referenced above are reflected in the United States Constitution and, before that, in the Declaration of Independence, and many are embodied in the Charter of the United Nations[4]. But none of them encompass the totality of “We the People” although perhaps some guidance is provided in the Preamble[5] to the Constitution of the United States as to the role for which the concept of “We the People” was created; i.e., “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Based on the foregoing, perhaps, at least in the United States of America, the Preamble to the Constitution should be the crux of the only oath we should be asked to take. One to the effect that, on our sacred honor we would each swear that we would do all we can to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”, understanding that “We the People” are not only those of us alive today but our ancestors and our descendants and that our actions and decisions need to take into account our traditions, our current needs and aspirations and the welfare and aspirations of our progeny.
Wouldn’t it be great if that was an oath not limited to citizens of the United States of America but to everyone, everywhere? If we took such an oath seriously, as all oaths should be taken, then perhaps justice and equity and equality and the common welfare might indeed someday prevail in a world at peace.
Something that at least deserves our consideration. _____
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
[1] In this regard, perhaps the 3rd commandment of the Decalogue should be taken into account: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain”, which refers to oaths using the “Lord’s” name as an enforcement mechanism. Formal oaths in the United States are normally taken on the Christian Bible and in the name of the Abrahamic divinity (“So help me God”), notwithstanding the 1st Amendment to the Constitution’s secular requirements.
[2] See, e.g., Calvo Mahé, Guillermo et. al. (Jiménez Ramírez, Milton Cesar, editor, 2020): “Capítulo I. Evolución del control de constitucionalidad en los estados unidos.”; El control de la constitucionalidad en episodios: acerca del control constitucional como límite al poder; Universidad de Caldas, Facultad de ciencias jurídicas y sociales; Bogotá.
[4] Some aspects are also reflected in the Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations, i.e.:
We the peoples of the united nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, … to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors, and to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples, have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims ….
[5] There are two very different perspectives with respect to preambles. One is that they are merely aspirational without any binding effect. The other, the one to which I ascribe, is that they embody the fundamental premises on which the promises and agreements which follow are based and to which they must conform, in the absence of which, the covenants embodied will have been extinguished. In a constitutional sense, that would mean that no amendments could impact the concepts embodied in a preamble without destroying the constitution, and perhaps, at best, replacing it. Something which occurred when the United States Constitution of 1787 unconstitutionally extinguished the Articles of Confederation, or, in the Republic of Colombia, when the Constitution of 1991 unconstitutionally replaced the Constitution of 1886.
Another “assassination” attempt in the United States. The third one in two years. All three directed at Donald J. Trump. Several while he was a presidential candidate and now one as president. Predictably, the president and his supporters blame Democratic criticism of Mr. Trump and the media’s reaction to the Epstein scandals while refusing to acknowledge that they themselves engage in similar rhetoric when given the chance, both branches of the AIPAC controlled uniparty doing everything possible to increase polarization within the United States electorate[1].
To me, the issue is more serious and more strategic. What to me is very different this time is that the Trump administration no longer treats assassinations or murders of heads of state or of their families or of their cabinets and their families as crimes, at least when the United States and Israel engage in such activities. The generality of such crimes which constitute violations of the most fundamental principal of international law, jus cogens, no longer seems applicable in the context of the United States and if assassination of political leaders is no longer a crime when engaged in by the United States, how would it then be a crime when engaged in against its own leaders? Legal logic, possibly an oxymoron, would dictate that political assassination is either always or never legal. In the pure legal sense, there is no room for self-serving hybrids.
Cole Tomas Allen, a 31 year old engineer, a purportedly highly intelligent and well educated individual, apparently believed that it was his duty to target Trump administration officials because of their connection to Jeffrey Epstein’s heinous crimes involving rape, pederasty, sexual abuse of minors, murder and satanic rituals, crimes which Mr. Allen’s targets refused to investigate, at least that’s what he claimed according to a note he sent family members minutes before the attack. There are also allegations that he was a pro-Ukraine fanatic furious because of declining United States support for the Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy regime and even a photograph briefly posted on Instagram of Mr. Allen in an Israeli Defense Forces sweatshirt[2]. Indeed, “Never Trumpers” have little trouble believing that all three purported attempts on Mr. Trump’s life were orchestrated, something to which Mr. Trump’s reactions sometimes add credibility. For example, immediately following the latest incident Mr. Trump and members of his cabinet went on the air to indicate how the incident proved the need for the “Big, Beautiful White House Ballroom” currently tied up in litigation. Furthermore, Mr. Trump and his supporters used the incident to justify renewal of authority for warrantless spying on United States citizens. Based on the prevalence of artificial intelligence, it’s impossible verify any of the allegations involving Mr. Allen’s motivation, ludicrous though they may be. If they are.
So, based on the foregoing, how is Mr. Allen to be judged based on the current state of the law? Or is he to be judged at all? After all, conviction without trial is hardly unusual now, at least when the United States is involved. Or Israel.
Many people I know, men who I trust admire and respect and who share a similar educational background with me, at least through undergraduate studies, see no problem with what the United States and Israel have done to leaders in Iran, and in Gaza and in Lebanon and in Syria and in Libya and in Iraq. The list goes on. But they’re horrified when assassination is “attempted”, even unsuccessfully, in the United States, whether the attempts are successful or not and whether against United States political leadership or against civic leaders like Charlie Kirk (unless, of course, it involved an Israeli project, the assassination Charley Kirk and of United States president John F. Kennedy in 1963 comes to mind, or the attack on the USS Liberty). Paranoia, apparently, is catching and I may have a touch, which brings to mind a probable urban myth concerning President Richard M. Nixon who, purportedly once exclaimed: “just because I may be paranoid does not mean there are not people out to get me. In Mr. Nixon’s case he was obviously right (no pun intended).
So, is “the do as I say and not as I do” refrain some parents used in the past (perhaps some still do) applicable when it comes to legal concepts such as crimes? In legal systems the concept of “comity”, a concept related to reciprocity, would seem applicable. But do legal systems still exist? Did they ever? Or are they as much of an illusion as are the concepts of democracy or of liberty or of accountability for one’s actions regardless of who one is (i.e., that purportedly no one is above the las)?
It’s entirely possible that neither international nor constitutional law (at least United States constitutional law) now exist. Perhaps only the “state of nature” posited in the seventeenth century by political philosopher Thomas Hobbes exists, one where only power matters (as Donald Trump has expressly stated). The demise of law and of legal systems in an international context seems like a cancer metastasizing but one which may soon spread to domestic law. Remember when, starting with the Obama administration, it became acceptable, if perhaps not really legal, for United States agents to kill United States citizens using drones and other means without a trial or even an indictment and without the excuse of self-defense? I do. It sickened me then, it sickens me now. It especially sickens me when its probity among our citizenry depends on the political party in power at the time. Especially in light of the reality that, in the United States, both major political parties are AIPAC owned, AIPAC bought and paid for.
My friends who find the extrajudicial execution of United States citizens and foreign leaders acceptable are, to the best of my knowledge, Christians, and religious Christians at that, and they claim to live in accordance with the Decalogue (the formal term for the Ten Commandments), or at least to try to do so. Most insist that the Decalogue should be posted in classroom and courthouses and in public buildings and public spaces. One of the commandments, not the least important, forbids murder. But, then again, it’s never really been taken seriously as a universal proscription, after all, we have abortion and capital punishment and war and “collateral damage” and lately, much to the surprise of many of us but not to many of my friends, the perception that genocide itself is not really wrong, or that deliberate mass murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians, most women, children and the elderly, is not “technically” genocide. Not any more anyway. Most of my conservative friends also claim to believe in a “strict interpretation” of the United States Constitution adopted in 1787 and of the first ten amendments thereto (adopted shortly thereafter), the ones contained in what we refer to as the Bill of Rights. However, their attitude towards both the Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights has undergone a gradual metamorphosis and strict construction is no longer as strict as it once was. That is especially true with respect to the first, fourth and fifth amendments to the Constitution and with respect to the fourteenth amendment adopted following the War Between the States (also referred to as the Civil War, although there was nothing “civil” about it).
I wonder what my friends would feel “duty bound to do” if, as Mr. Allen purportedly believed, they believed that Mr. Trump and members of his administration were in fact involved in rape, pederasty, pedophilia, murder and satanic rituals and that it seemed that their actions would never be prosecuted? Would it matter? Would they dare to take the law into their own hands as Mr. Allen purportedly attempted to do? Should they? I was once pretty sure they would, after all, they were heroes many times over under circumstances involving life and death, their own and those of men and women they commanded. Now, I’m pretty sure they would not. But also, that they should not. John Wilkes Booth firmly believed that Abraham Lincoln was a tyrant responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. Brutus believed the same with respect to Julius Caesar. Indeed, most political assassins are firmly convinced of the justice of their respective causes. And they are frequently not wrong. But as a society, until very recently, political assassination was anathema. Or at least purportedly anathema.[3] Is that still the perspective we should adopt? Pragmatically it is and should be despite the resulting impunity, otherwise political violence would be even more prevalent than it currently is. But the lid to the amphora in which Pandora purportedly kept the ills of the world safely locked has been smashed to smithereens.
I’m not a believer in the divinity of the person my friends refer to as Jesus (his real name was the Aramaic rendering of Yešu), nor am I any longer a believer in the god Yešu is said to have worshipped, YHWH, and whose son Yešu purportedly was[4]. But I am a believer in many of the proscriptions contained in the Decalogue and specifically the proscription against killing, and I am a believer in many of the teachings concerning interpersonal relations attributed directly to Yešu. And I am a believer in the United States Constitution although I think it is long overdue for a massive revamping[5]. Consequently, to me, any assassination is anathema, any murder is anathema and all genocide is anathema. But the greatest crime of all may be the corruption of the bravest and best among us, those we believed would protect us from the evil and corruption that surrounds us, those who, seeing it all, now accept it as right and proper and patriotic. Something certainly not unique to United States society. It obviously occurred as the Weimer Republic came to an end.
That people who share backgrounds so similar to mine have such divergent perspectives so passionately held is problematic. For all of us I suppose. As is the profound general demise of empathy and tolerance which has been replaced with intolerant polarization and the rejection of the philosophies reflected in United States Bill of Rights, philosophies that the world seemed to admire so much and which many societies sought to emulate. But today’s world seems more like one in which the most fervent fascists defeated in the Second World War would feel comfortable. Assassination of political leaders and their families and extermination through genocide and ethnic cleansing has somehow become reasonable, at least to many, and the imbalance of wealth between the wealthiest and the poorest now seems an unbreachable chasm. As in preludes to civil wars, we see each other, even within families, as not just mistaken but evil, and we seem unable to even consider the reasons others hold opposing views. The apparent human instinct to vilify is availed of by tiny minorities comprised of the worst among us in order to keep us divided and easily controlled, fighting each other while we’re slowly bled, morally, ethically, economically and physically. We react based on our fears rather than our hopes, fears that are induced rather than prudent, casting aside the values of tolerance that we had seemingly been developing over the past several centuries. The values which echoed those the gentle Nazarene from Palestine tried to teach us millennia ago. Values largely predicated on a single concept: empathy.
How is it that so many Christians, that so many military officers (both serving and retired) who have willingly put their lives at risk to uphold a noble system of values, now so cavalierly reject them? How is that those who so cavalierly wasted the lives and welfare of so many of my fellow alumni[6] now rule unfettered and without sacrifice over us? People like the current president of the United States and his predecessor Joseph Robinette Biden, or Barrack Obama, or George W. Bush, etc., people who have no “skin in the game”, either theirs or their families. People who continue to send the best of us to waste their lives, taking the lives of other young men and women, other sons and daughters, other mothers and fathers, other siblings and friends as though they were irrelevancies because they were born elsewhere and feel as strongly about their values as we purport to feel about ours?
How sick is that? How sick are we? Where have our values gone? Where has our humanity gone? For what have we exchanged it? Would our planet be a better place without us? If Yešu in fact lived, whether as a divinity or merely as an ethical human being, what would he think of us, especially of those who promote assassination and murder and genocide and ethnic cleansing and inequity and inequality and injustice, in his name?
So, back to more current events, should we be surprised that political assassination attempts and that mass killings in our schools are seemingly becoming so normal when the organized mass murder of so many millions abroad has become praiseworthy and when the armaments industry has become the prime beneficiary of a major portion of our earnings?
Are we really as stupid and manipulable and lacking in decency as the worst among us hope? It’s hard to imagine that we are when we think of those we love and respect but, when we listen to them now, when we read their posts and their opinions, the decency inherent within them seems to have vanished. It seems to have been stolen in a manner identical to the way the virtue of children is stolen when they’re raped and abused. Something sickeningly more common than until recently, until after Epstein and friends were brought into the light of day (sort of), we thought possible. But our hypocrisy and lack of empathy and ability to rationalize makes it possible, heaven or something like heaven, help us. _____
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
[3] The Central Intelligence Agency, the Mossad, Britain’s MI6, etc., clearly not only believed otherwise but acted otherwise. Do you perhaps remember Ngô Đình Diệm and the havoc that ensued? Or president Kennedy?
[4] Jews, of course, reject those assertions as discussed in the Toledot Yeshu (See Calvo Mahé (2024): “The Life of Yešu According to Diverse Jewish Sources”; Academia.edu.). Muslims take an equivocal position between the two, respecting Yešu as the second most important man who ever lived, and as their savior, but not as divine.
[6]E.g., of graduates from the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina and from the Eastern Military Academy, and from institutions like those that to me seem so noble, institutions like the Virginia Military Institute, the United States Military Academy at West Point, the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, the United States Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Norwich University, Texas A&M, etc., and, of course, of the men they led.
Abstract: A Gaelic-style satire speculating on whether President Donald J. Trump is more likely to be a reincarnation of Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus or the Pauline antichrist or possibly both or neither, and whether quantum theories provide other possibilities. [1], [2]
There are people today who claim to believe that Donald John Trump, the current president of the United States is the antichrist[3], the one predicted by Saul of Tarsus in his guise as Paulus, the Roman Jew who created the religions today grouped together as Christianity[4]. Only a few of those who make that claim, however, are really religious. Nonetheless, their message has resonated, albeit primarily among political opponents. I believe there may be a more likely, less supernatural possibility (or perhaps metaphor): one involving the possibility of “reincarnation”. That concept is usually relegated to metaphysics and oriental religions but it’s actually a pretty widely held, although perhaps not a firmly held, belief[5]. However, there is a tempting hypothesis that makes it sound reasonable, one involving “evolutionary monist panentheism[6]” premised on a belief that the omniverse may be sentient and that it evolves by learning through experience, experience acquired using reincarnation of its biological components as a tool. Waste not want not.
The reincarnation hypothesis is as difficult to prove as it is impossible to disprove and with reference to the scientific method the question always is, is it “testable”? It is not, not yet, perhaps never. No hypotheses concerning the “after life” are but yet, they are widely held and by some pretty smart people (as well, of course, by many people of questionable sanity). Still, the reincarnation hypothesis seems at least as possible as Paul’s beliefs concerning the antichrist. Until, of course, the antichrist shows up. If he or she does. That would tend to render the hypothesis tested.
So, let’s examine both of the foregoing hypotheses. First we’ll look at reincarnative possibilities and then we’ll delve into antichristic possibilities and finally, we’ll very briefly consider other alternatives.
Cheers!!! A nice goblet of brandy may go very well with the following.
On the Possibility that the Current President of the United States is a Reincarnation of a Late Roman Princeps[7]:
We initiate this analysis by recalling an event that occurred during October of the 37th year of the Common Era (although the timeline had yet to be designated as such). It involved a young fellow by the name of Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (formerly just Gaius Julius Caesar, a name he shared with his great grandfather) but better known to history as “Caligula[8]” (“little boot”, a nickname he hated)[9]. That year Caligula (I’ll use that name given that I’m not all that fond of him) came to believe that he’d undergone an apotheotic metamorphosis and had been transformed, while alive, from a mortal into a divinity. Such transformations, at that time, were not unusual but they generally occurred postmortem. Today, well, it’s been a while, but ….
At the time of his apotheotic metamorphosis, Caligula was the anointed “princeps” (first citizen) of the Roman people, a title akin to that of Führer among twentieth century Germans (which raises another possible reincarnation scenario). Caligula had many other titles though. Titles which included but were not limited to Pater Patriae, Pontifex Maximus and consul (several time). But for purposes of this speculation I especially like his title as “Optimus Maximus Caesar” (the Greatest and Best Caesar), one that would certainly appeal to Mr. Trump who would probably have added the term “Ever”. Moderns seem to believe that Caligula was referred to as “emperor” but they’re mistaken, they frequently are.
History has not treated Caligula kindly but then, history not infrequently[10] records events in a manner very different from that which an objective observer would consider accurate. History is, after all, a sort of calcified version of journalism and we know just how unreliable journalism can be. It always has been[11]. All too frequently, as is the case of journalism and journalists, historical verities are completely obfuscated and, in the case of Caligula, or Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus if you prefer, that might well have been the case (Barrett, 2015).
Now to the crux of our speculation: i.e., events in the United States of America that took place on the weekend of April 11 through 12 of 2026 when a “president” of the United States (not quite the same as a “princeps”, at least not yet, at least not that we know of although some suspect) apparently had an experience analogous to that of young Caligula after a dispute with the now current Roman Pontiff, Robert Francis Prevost (whose papal name is Leo XIV). Interestingly, like Caligula, Pope Leo is a man of many titles, one of which is shared with Caligula, that of Pontifex Maximus. But Leo is not the object of our speculation.
For some reason hard to decipher other than perhaps a belief that he had been, was being or would be deified while alive, Mr. Trump publicly shared artificial intelligence assisted artwork on a self-serving (some would assert, self-aggrandizing) Internet platform which he founded and ironically named “Truth Social”. The “artwork” portrayed Mr. Trump as a divinity, apparently as Yešu the Nazarene[12], the itinerant Palestinian Hebrew civic activist and healer who may have lived several millennia ago[13]. After due reflection, well after due reflection following massive public outrage, Mr. Trump removed the offending post claiming that he’d been misunderstood, as usual, and that the “artwork” merely depicted him as a “physician” curing a patient through non-traditional means. An interesting reaction.
Many people throughout the world found Mr. Trump’s post reminiscent of the ancient Roman princeps Caligula and speculation concerning similarities between Mr. Trump and Caligula became rife, although such speculation was not new[14]. In Mr. Trump’s defense, he might have referenced the fact that, unlike Caligula, he has yet to seek a seat in the Senate for a horse of which he is fond although, while Mr. Trump does not currently own horses, he famously owned a thoroughbred originally named Alibi which he renamed “D. J. Trump”, one he purchased for $500,000 in 1988, but the horse never raced due to health issues and was later retired to stud[15] before dying in 1991[16]. Hmmm, “stud”, that’s purportedly how Mr. Trump perceives of himself but, given J.D.’s demise in 1991, no equine senatorial candidate is likely to be nominated by Mr. Trump, at least for now. Still, his critics would likely have pointed out that like young Caligula, Mr. Trump also fancies himself a great artist (perhaps the greatest artist ever), or at least a great interior decorator (ditto). And a great exterior decorator as well (with ballrooms and arches of triumph a new specialty). Previously it had been hotels and golf courses. And beauty pageants! Both Caligula and the president were fond of beauty pageants although Caligula’s involved involuntary participation in erotic activities in the style of Mr. Trump’s former friend, Jeffrey Epstein, by the wives of members of the Roman Senate. That possibility has yet to occur to Mr. Trump. At least as far as we know. If ever released, the Epstein files might indicate otherwise[17].
But, superficial anecdotes and similarities aside, … About reincarnation? Is it possible that Caligula, whose career was cut short by his own Praetorians, is revisiting us?
Well, “possible” is a very open ended concept. It’s possible that the world we perceive doesn’t exist[18] and that we’re just players in a nightmare being experienced by the earliest life form, perhaps the primal prokaryote, so perhaps reincarnation is possible and, if so, perhaps an angry and vengeful Caligula has returned to correct erroneous impressions or, perhaps, to confirm them. Let’s assemble evidence so that we can make an informed guess, comparing young Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus with the current avatar of Donald John Trump (sometimes referred to, at his suggestion, as “the Donald”). And let’s assemble it using the artificial intelligence of which the Donald seems so fond when creating images some might interpret as divine.
According to a query concerning Caligula on the Internet platform known as Chrome and a response, apparently employing artificial intelligence, here is what is popularly known about Caligula’s attributes, with my own responsive observations concerning similarities with the Donald:
“Divine Self-Image: Caligula frequently appeared in public dressed as various gods and demigods, such as Hercules, Mercury and Venus. He was known to have the heads removed from famous statues of gods and replaced with his own, treating himself as the supreme artistic masterpiece.” Hmmm, to my knowledge, the Donald has yet to engage “publicly” in activities comparable to the foregoing (well, except with respect to planned changes in currency) but there is a sense that he just might, given time. To date, he only does that in artificially enhanced artwork that he posts on his personal social media platform, “Truth Social”. That’s something young Caligula could not match. But similarities, hmmm. Yep!
“Oratory and Performance: Caligula was regarded as a “renowned declaimer” and enjoyed showing off his oratorical skills. He reportedly engaged in public performances and acted in various capacities, showcasing an ego that required public validation of his talents.” While cognizanti concerning rhetoric and grammar ridicule Mr. Trump’s “eloquence”, he himself revels in displaying his oratorical antics and he certainly showcases an ego that requires public validation of his talents. To his admirers and followers, he certainly seems to be a “renowned declaimer”. So, once again, yep!
“Emulating Hellenistic Kings: Caligula admired the style of Hellenistic rulers, who were often treated as living gods and viewed themselves as patrons or creators of high art.” Hmmm, this raises interesting questions, especially in light of his latest antics. It seems clear that Mr. Trump views himself, especially with respect to real estate construction, as a “creator of high art”, witness his decoration of the Oval Office and the White House, his planned White House Ballroom and his proposed Arch of Triumph (as well as his plans for Gaza). And he also seems to see himself as a monarch (something he’s also portrayed on Truth Social with the help of artificial intelligence). So, not a perfect match but then perfection is an elusive goal. But similarities? Yep! Again.
“Dismissal of Rivals: He was known to act with extreme arrogance, with accounts noting that “no one was allowed to outrank Caligula” in any regard”. Well, in this regard Mr. Trump clearly outdoes young Caligula and that is even without regard to his recent denigration of Catholic Pope Leo XIV. So; … absolutely!
“Removal of Obstructions to Personal Power:During his brief reign, Caligula worked to increase the unconstrained personal power of the princeps as opposed to countervailing powers within the Principate”. That pretty definitely sounds like the Donald. Separation of powers is certainly something he ignores as he ignores concepts such as the sovereignty of independent countries, the rules of international law and anything and everything that does not coincide with his personal morality of the moment (see, e.g., Yang, 2026).
“Military Experience”; Caligula did not lead Roman troops in a conventional battle. In the year 40 of the Common Era but he marched an army to the English Channel for a planned invasion of Britain. However, instead of fighting, he ordered the legionnaires to attack the waves with weapons and to collect seashells as “spoils of the sea” to celebrate an imagined victory over the sea god Neptune.” While Mr. Trump attended a military high school in New York, he “declined” to serve in the military given that the conflict in Vietnam was not healthy for his feet[19]. He did however order the kidnapping of the president of Venezuela and a joint attack (along with Israel) on Iran, in both cases, hoping that their oil would qualify as a trophy, and he provided Israel with all the funds and armaments necessary to engage in genocidal ethnic cleansing throughout the Middle East. That should count for something.
“Impoverishing his subjects”: Caligula impoverished the Roman treasury by squandering 2.7 billion sesterces left by his predecessor, Tiberius, in less than a year. His lavish spending on spectacles, personal luxury and extravagant building projects led him to seize private property, raise taxes and resort to extortion to fund his reign.” Hmmm, well, Mr. Trump also spends lavishly, largely at the behest of his buddy, Benjamin Netanyahu, and, together, they increased the United States national debt from less than twenty trillion dollars at the beginning of Mr. Trump’s initial term as president to almost forty trillion by the end of his fifth year in the presidency, albeit with a little help from his friend Joey Robinette Biden. Well, not so much a friend as a bitter enemy but with shared values and goals (they both enjoyed plundering). But Joey was the friend of a friend (Bibi) and it’s the thought that counts. And Mr. Trump did raid and steal assets to help fund his extravagant ideas, especially from Venezuela. Like Caligula (and Eric Cartman of South Park fame), the Donald’s motto has been “I can do whatever I want”! And of course there’s the White House ballroom and the proposed Arc de Triomphe, etc., so, one more time, a hearty yep!
Hmm, it seems there may be disturbing trends echoing in from the past. And they continue:
A Wikipedia entry with respect to Caligula[20] asserts that he was initially perceived as a “good, generous, fair and community-spirited” sort of guy but that he promptly became “increasingly self-indulgent, cruel, sadistic, extravagant and sexually perverted”, eventually evolving into “an insane, murderous tyrant who demanded and received worship as a living god, humiliated the Senate and planned to make his horse a consul”. However, the Wikipedia article notes that, on reflection, given the fact that his history was written by Senatorial detractors long after his assassination, modern historians “dismiss many of the allegations against him as misunderstandings, exaggerations, mockery or malicious fantasies”. Well, the media, other than that controlled by pro-Israeli Zionists such as Fox News, has given Mr. Trump a pretty hard time up to now but, as a result, pro-Israeli Zionists have gone on a buying spree buying-up numerous media sources[21], especially those that have been critical of Mr. Trump, like CNN. Sounds like the future may hold further similarities. Here again echoes seem to ring loudly with reference both to the “unflattering” written conclusions concerning Mr. Trump and his defense by those inclined to view him more favorably. Sycophants I think they’re called[22].
Continuing:
With reference to the observations of more prurient similarities between Mr. Trump and the Princeps, Caligula, for many decades Mr. Trump has been viewed as a sexual addict, a sexual predator and perhaps even a sexual pervert[23] (as was Caligula), especially given his close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein but, during his first term as president it can be argued that his intentions at least were “good, generous, fair and community-spirited”. It is also clear that during that time his opponents engaged in a vicious and unfair campaign to discredit him[24]. However, apparently at least in part due to the abuse he suffered during his first term and even more, to the abuse he suffered during the Joseph Robinette Biden presidency, his second term has been very different from the positive aspects that seemed possible during his first term thus, all of the pejorative descriptions of Caligula seem to be have become germane with respect to Mr. Trump[25], except, of course, the references to equestrian matters. At least for the nonce. It seems unlikely that equines will soon obtain representation in the United States Senate; golf clubs however, may be a different matter.
Anyway:
Partially as a result of the Biden administration’s abuse of power and its own corruption following Mr. Trump’s initial term, a supportive reaction occurred among the electorate and he was elected to a non-consecutive second term, a rarity in United States political history. He was elected amid expectations that he would reverse the Biden administration’s support for Israeli military adventures, genocide and ethnic cleansing and the foreign interventionism that had characterized four of the previous United States presidencies (the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden presidencies), after all, that’s what he’d promised (among a plethora of other things).
So, another similarity crops up, predecessors!! Caligula’s predecessor, Tiberius Claudius Nero (then Tiberius Julius Caesar, then Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus) had been very unpopular towards the end of his reign and it was hoped, even expected, that the abuses of Tiberius would be curbed when Caligula came to power. No such luck. Pretty much the same can be said with respect to the Donald. Almost immediately following his second inaugural however, all restraints were cast aside and delusions of grandeur comparable to those of young Caligula were made manifest. Well, at least more manifest than theretofore. Indeed, Mr. Trump specifically insisted, in response to critics, that neither the United States Constitution nor international law nor the opinions of non-aligned religious leaders nor public opinion restricted his activities in any manner, only his own “morals of the moment” being relevant[26]. As a result, Mr. Trump has quickly become (as was the case with Caligula) the least popular president in recorded United States history[27], a perception shared throughout the world with the exception of genocidal Israel and the few world leaders who find both Mr. Trump and his apparent political master, Benjamin Netanyahu, men to be admired, a view however not shared by most of their subjugated populations.
The term “least popular” is complex though, at least among the United States electorate. Mr. Trump’s most fervent followers profess to devout Christianity and continue to support him, no matter what, completely ignoring all vestiges of reality, even as his conduct becomes more and more deranged and at odds with the Christianity they claim to profess[28]. Thus this speculation (intended as a “satire” in the ancient Gaelic sense) is, in part, a reaction to the reactions of many people for whom the author cares and who he respects respects (having shared similar educational backgrounds) but whose ability to grasp reality now seems impossible for the author to understand. Well, unless he takes into account the impact of B. F. Skinner’s behaviorist psychology and modern communications theory[29] and the apparent reality that facts not only do not impact strongly-held opinions but that contradictory facts seem to reinforce them[30]. The author is specifically alluding to attitudes by Mr. Trump supporting and enabling genocidal events in the Middle East by Israel, the Pearl Harbor-like attack on Iran by the United States and Israel and ignoring the Zionist attitude towards Christians in the Middle East where spitting on Christians and desecrating Christian artifacts and destroying churches is considered a Jewish tradition[31] (something with which non-Zionist Jews do not agree). Facts with reference to the foregoing are plentiful and readily available but, as in the case of the “say no evil, see no evil and hear no evil simians”, such facts are blissfully ignored by United States citizens, many of them military veterans and religious Christians who one would think, based on heretofore shared values and shared educational experiences, would know better. But they don’t, and they don’t aggressively. They view those who believe as the author[32] does to be historically ignorant, deluded and lacking patriotism. Fair enough. Thus this “satire”.
So, enough about Mr. Trump as the incarnation of Caligula (for the moment). The evidence is strong but not conclusive. And we still have no definitive evidence that reincarnation exists at all, although it may be a possibility. But what about Mr. Trump’s potential role as the antichrist?[33]
On the Possibility that the president of the United States is the Antichrist Envisioned by Saul of Tarsus (and others):
Some of Mr. Trump’s followers, perhaps many, assert that he is the catalyst for the second coming of Yešu and that his seemingly deranged current activities in the Middle East in support of the quest for Israeli hegemony should be seen as the precursors for the great battle they anticipate at Armageddon, the herald for Yešu’s return. Of course, that would tend to support the hypotheses that Mr. Trump really is the antichrist[34] rather than merely the reincarnation of Caligula as the role of catalyst for Armageddon is usually ascribed to that entity. But what are the purported attributes of the antichrist and how do they relate to Mr. Trump? Again I’ll seek the assistance of a version of artificial intelligence as superficially provided by the Chrome Internet browser for assistance: Based on Pauline prophecies the antichrist is depicted as a charismatic, deceitful global leader and dictator who appears during the end times[35]. Among his principal characteristics are the following, which I will compare with characteristics attributable to Mr. Trump:
“The Man of Lawlessness/Sin: He is marked by total rebellion aiming to change established times and laws”. Hmmm, pretty much on point as he has stated that he is bound neither by the Constitution or International law but only by his own “morality” of the moment (see, e.g., Yang, 2026), a morality that quickly changes as convenient.
“Blasphemous Ruler: He speaks arrogant words, blasphemes God.” Hmm, I think Catholic Pope Leo XIV might have strong opinions on this point but, in a contrary fashion, so do his followers who equate his pronouncements with those of their god.
“Charismatic Deceiver: He initially appears as a peaceful savior, using flattery and brilliant deception to gain power, often compared to a ‘little horn’ that grows in influence.” Hmm, well, “ain’t that the truth!
“Global Dictator: He will gain worldwide authority over nations and religions.” Well, he certainly perceives himself in that light and is doing everything he can to make it a reality.
“Economic Controller: He controls the global economy, forcing a mark on the right hand or forehead, forbidding anyone to buy or sell without it.” Once again, hmmmm: Donald Trump owns hundreds of trademarks and service marks globally, managed primarily through his company, DTTM Operations LLC. His portfolio includes over 800 trademarks in more than 80 countries, covering real estate, hotels, hospitality, apparel and merchandise, alongside political campaign slogans like “Make America Great Again”. Aha!!! MAGA.
“Persecutor of Believers: He is a blood-thirsty dictator who wars against and destroys those who refuse to follow him.” Wow!!!! That pretty much describes the Donald, just ask former followers Tucker Carlson or Megyn Kelly or Candace Owens or Alex Jones or Clint Russell or Nick Fuentes, etc., and, of course, anyone who opposes him in any form. Ask Pope Leo.
Observations & Contextualization
Although I usually refrain from using pejoratives such as “ignorant” and “stupid” (this speculation notwithstanding) because I feel they would be counterproductive if I am seeking to persuade, I have to admit that such thoughts do cross my mind. And they sadden me with respect to the people who hold those beliefs who I personally know, men with whom I’ve studied or who’ve graduated from educational institutions I also attended. And they are many. Probably a majority. Which leads me to ask myself how and why my perceptions and perspectives are so different from theirs. That I may be wrong and they may be right is an essential postulate with respect to an open mind. Empathy calls and only empathy can someday resolve our differences, assuming that empathy somehow survives. Well then, a bit of personal revelation (a sort of pun) is probably in order, revelation that seems relevant in light of the nature of most current Trump supporters (other than Israelis) who believe themselves to be devout Christians (or else devout Zionists). Revelation that may help to explain the differences in our perceptions, as well as similarities that may someday provide resolution.
I’ve explored religions since I was seven years old[36] and as a young adult, taught courses on comparative religions and comparative mythologies. Based on my research and on profound reflections I’ve come to rejected most, perhaps all the religions I’ve studied, at least as postulated, although I’ve not rejected their fundamental premises[37]. I’ve studied religions primarily from historical and philosophical perspectives using historical and philosophical sources accompanied by deep personal introspection, frequently introspection facilitated as I wrote and puzzled over, … well, the myriad puzzles[38] religions present, puzzles where questions multiply as answers become more and more evasive, although answers are not required where “faith” can substitute for facts and logic. In doing so I encountered doctrines that were purportedly espoused[39] by Yešu and I found the precepts attributed directly to him with respect to interpersonal relationships both worthy and generous, with a sweet undertone, as opposed to those ascribed to the Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus so beloved of Trump supporters, whose doctrines seemed mean spirited and callous to me, all too frequently aligned with fund raising and control, almost the opposite of those attributed directly to Yešu. And, of course, Saul is the primary originator of the antichrist mythos.
The association of Pauline Christianity with Mr. Trump is certainly a point of departure from Caligula who reigned during the birth of the movement that sprung up around Yešu during his lifetime. But it’s a point of contact with respect to speculation involving the antichrist. Caligula probably reigned shortly after Yešu’s demise, his demise either through crucifixion by the Romans, as related in what has come to be referred to as the New Testament, or torture, stoning and hanging by the Jerusalem Sanhedrin, as related in diverse versions of the Jewish Toledot Yeshu[40]. Muslims reject the notion that he was put to death and insist that Yešu (Isa to them) survived and eventually ascended directly into Heaven without a sojourn in Hell. Caligula reigned from the years 37 through 41 of the Common Era and likely had no direct contact with or knowledge of early followers of Yešu (not yet Christians), who were still a small, emerging Jewish sect. Of course, Mr. Trump’s Christian followers are more correctly followers of one of the many Pauline religions premised mainly on the death of Yešu rather than on the precepts he sought to imbue. So, in matters of religion, the nexus between Mr. Trump and Caligula suffers from a temporal vacuum when it comes to how we might compare them other than the seeming fact that both appear to consider themselves divinities and that neither particularly respected religion, except in so far as it served to aggrandize them. But the differences between Yešu’s ethical and moral teachings with respect to interpersonal relations and the divergent Pauline doctrines do a lot to explain the differing perceptions among those of us who otherwise share such similarities in education and values. After all, Yešu never mentioned a “Christ” or an “antichrist”.
Far Off Hypotheses and Conclusions:
Wow, Caligula reincarnated versus the Pauline antichrist, it seems like a tie.
In neither case is there demonstrably definitive probative evidence that either concept is valid which, however, is not the same as indicating that no supporting evidence exists. “Demonstrably definitive probative evidence” is a much harder standard of proof than the “beyond a reasonable doubt standard” required for criminal conviction. But there is definitely adequate proof that a Donald J. Trump exists (unfortunately) and it is very likely that there was a Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus and a Saul of Tarsus and even a Yešu as well.
So, where are we in this comparative speculation in the guise of a Gaelic satire? Are there any other possible conclusions we might want to consider?
Well, to be honest, farfetched though they may be, there are other alternative hypotheses concerning the possible apotheoses of Caligula and or Mr. Trump or others? Indeed, there are several to the effect that fictional characters can incarnate. One is posited by Daniil Andreev and taken seriously by some fairly intelligent people[41]. And supposedly “quantum” theories have confused everything while they have made everything possible. So let’s speculate a bit on that hypothesis as a final element worthy of a Gaelic satire. How about a presidential version of Yosemite Sam? Yosemite Sam first came to public awareness during 1945, the year prior to the Donald’s birth. While I personally don’t believe it’s likely that cartoon characters can reincarnate but the similarity is also, in some respects, uncanny. My apologies to Sam. The same holds true for Eric Cartman of South Park fame, another Donald Trump act-alike.
So, in light of the foregoing, what might we conclude, recalling that this is a speculation in the form of a Gaelic satire?
Well, it’s theoretically possible that both primary speculations concerning Mr. Trump are accurate and that he is Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus reincarnated and that both are the antichrist anticipated by Paulus, formerly Saul of Tarsus. A sort of ribbon on this satiric package. One seemingly more reasonable than the Yosemite Sam or Eric Cartman hypotheses. Or, of course, none may be accurate and Mr. Trump may be sui generis, as he believes, although the nature of his uniqueness is certainly up for debate and may well be debated for centuries (as is the case with Caligula), assuming that the world survives Mr. Trump’s presidency. At any rate, in closing, a traditional Gaelic “aspiration” may well be appropriate with reference to Mr. Trump:
“Imeacht gan teacht ort!”
Interested readers may want to look it up. It is certainly not the worst malediction one might contrive.
I wonder if this speculation qualifies as a syllogism, albeit a sarcastic and satirical syllogism.
Bibliography & Sources
Andreev, Daniil (1957, published in English 1997): The Rose of the World (translated by Jordan Roberts); Lindisfarne Books, London.
Barrett, Anthony A. (2015): Caligula: The Abuse of Power. 2nd ed. Routledge, London.
McGinn, Bernard (1994): Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil; HarperSanFrancisco, San Francisco.
McLaughlin, Roisin (2008): “Early Irish Satire”; Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, Volume 62, January 2010; School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Dublin.
Stevenson, I. (1997). Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects (Vols. 1–2). Praeger Publishers, Westport, CT.
Tabor, James D. (2013): Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity; Simon & Schuster, New York City.
Whitehead, Andrew L. and Samuel L. Perry. 2020. Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States. Oxford University Press, New York City.
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
[1] This piece is way too long, even as a Gaelic satire, but I just couldn’t help myself and for those with the patience to read it, I think you’ll find it at least entertaining and possibly informative. Give it a try!! I double down dare you! It’ll piss Donald Trump off no end.
Apologies: I hereby formally and sincerely apologize, beforehand and as an afterword, to Pope Leo XIV, to Yešu, to all my friends who will be offended by a Gaelic satire directed at someone they love, to fundamentalist Zionist Christians in general, to Yosemite Sam, to Eric Cartman and to Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. Better late than never. Finally, last but not least, should it turn out that Saul of Tarsus (a/k/a Paulus) was indeed the antichrist, my apologies for having attributed that possibility to Mr. Trump and to Mr. Germanicus (assuming that is the proper modern manner of addressing Caligula).
[2] For Gaelic satire, see generally McLaughlin, Roisin (2008): “Early Irish Satire”; Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, Volume 62, January 2010; School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Dublin.
[3] For an academic discussion of the antichrist, see McGinn, Bernard (1994): Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil; HarperSanFrancisco, San Francisco.
[4] See, e.g., Tabor, James D. (2013): Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity; Simon & Schuster, New York City.
[5] For an academic study delving into the possibility of reincarnation, see generally Stevenson, I. (1997). Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects (Vols. 1–2). Praeger Publishers, Westport.
[6] “Evolutionary monist panentheism” is a philosophical and theological worldview that posits that all reality exists within a single, interconnected divine being that is both beyond the universe (transcendent) and immanent within it. This divine reality is not static; rather, it is constantly evolving alongside the universe, with all constituent parts striving toward greater complexity and “perfection”. See generally Clayton, P. (2004): Mind and emergence: From quantum to consciousness. Oxford University Press, New York City; see also Calvo Mahé, Guillermo (2025): “Panentheistic Reflections on Evolutionary Structure”; The Inannite Review, Substack, September 28, 2025 available at https://open.substack.com/pub/guillermocalvomah/p/panentheistic-reflections-on-evolutionary?r=lwzkv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web.
[8] A sort of strange confession impacting my probable lack of objectivity concerning Caligula is in order. The paternal line of my family (the Calvi) has long clung to what to me appears to be a historical delusion (a variant on an urban myth so, a family myth). Some among them claim ancestry from a certain Gaius Calvisius Sabinus who was a Roman consul in the year 26 of the Common Era. A prior Calvisius Sabinus from whom they also claim descent was co-consul with Octavian during the 4th year prior to the Common Era, the purported year of Yešu’s birth, at least according to some. The former Calvisius Sabinus (although later in time) was a Roman senator who fell out of favor during Caligula’s reign, long after he’d served as consul, because he and his wife Cornelia had been accused of conspiring against the Princeps (a point of pride among those old members of my family who cling to the myth). To avoid a certain conviction Calvisius and Cornelia both committed suicide during the year 39 of the Common Era thus avoiding the trial. Notwithstanding my certainty that the familial relationship is mythical, it did impact my earliest perceptions with respect to Caligula. On the other hand, given evolutional biological probabilities, most people with southern European roots may well be descended indirectly from most people who bore children in that region during antiquity. Just not in a direct line as my own ancestors seem to believe.
[9] For a detailed academic discussion relating to Caligula, see generally Barrett, Anthony A. (2015): Caligula: The Abuse of Power. 2nd ed. Routledge, London.
[10] A double negative, I know, I know, I claim poetic license, after all, Gaelic satires are poetic in nature.
[11] “Yellow Journalism” preceded the Pulitzer – Hearst battles of the 19th century, see for example, the vicious journalistic battles involving Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson (with the assistance of James Madison) versus Alexander Hamilton and even Aaron Burr [see, e.g., Sheehan, Colleen A. (2004): “Madison v. Hamilton: The Battle Over Republicanism and the Role of Public Opinion”; American Political Science Review, Volume 98, Issue 3, August 2004 pp. 405–424, available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/4145337] and, even before Caligula, Marcus Tullius Cicero and Gaius Julius Caesar engaged in written rhetorical battles were truth was not infrequently victimized, see, e.g., Pauli, Adolf F. (1958): “Letters of Caesar and Cicero to Each Other”; The Classical World, Vol. 51, No. 5 (Feb., 1958), pp. 128-132. The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/4344010.
[12] Known primarily under Greek variants of the name such as Jesus (English), Jesús (Spanish), Jésus (French), Gesù (Italian), and Yesu (Swahili/Hindi).
[20] Not that Wikipedia is always a reliable source, especially as to things about which exuberant contributors feel strongly. Caligula, however, for now, seems a safe topic. See Wikipedia contributors. (2026, April 12). Caligula. In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 00:42, April 20, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Caligula&oldid=1348470896.
[21]E.g., Paramount Global, Warner Brothers Discovery, HBO/HBO Max, CNN, DC Comics and Warner Bros. Pictures and TikTok USA, etc.
[24] Indeed, this author frequently defended Mr. Trump in diverse published articles as well as on radio and television from a number of the unfair attacks levelled against him although always stressing that such defense did not indicate positive support for Mr. Trump or for Mr. Trump’s conduct, beliefs or proposed policies. While I profoundly regret the fact that Mr. Trump has been elected president of the United States and, as in the case of his predecessor, has been a facilitator directly responsible for genocide, ethnic cleansing and Israel’s campaign of lebensraum in the Middle East, I do not regret having defended him from unfair accusations and attacks which in fact made him more popular than ever. Such defense, I feel, provides my critiques of Mr. Trump with more credibility, at least I hope so.
[25] Hmm, that brings up another possibility, one unrelated to the antichrist or reincarnation, spiritual possession. But that’s beyond the scope of this already far too long “speculation”.
[27] See, e.g., Rottinghaus, B., & Vaughn, J. S. (2024): Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey 2024. University of Houston; Coastal Carolina University.
[28] See, e.g., Whitehead, Andrew L. and Samuel L. Perry. 2020. Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States. Oxford University Press, New York City.
[32] Okay, I’ll confess, “I” am the author referenced above. I was just briefly trying to maintain a more academic attitude which for some reason eschews use of the first person. But that has quickly become tedious. I will therefor return to using I, or me, or myself, etc., from here on out. I can almost sense the grammatical first person smiling while the third person frowns.
[33] As a disclaimer or better yet, an admission, I’ve always believed that if an antichrist ever existed it was the man who invented the concept, Saul of Tarsus but, for purposes of this speculation, I’ll pretend to keep an open mind. Sort of the way a journalist would.
[36] Hence my familiarity with reincarnation in the evolutional monist panentheistic sense.
[37] I confess however to being drawn to the concept of evolutional monist panentheism in an agnostic sense.
[38] As a barely relevant (perhaps irrelevant) aside, I’ve taught comparative religions in conjunction with which I’ve studied all three branches of the Abrahamic faiths as well as the Indian religions (all Indian religions revolve around a mixture of Hindu concepts sometimes mixed somehow with Islam), Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Theosophy, primitive mythologies (which my students wisely referred to as “other peoples’ religions), etc. In trying to understand current world politics, a study of the Abrahamic religions and their interrelationship seems essential and my friends, those who were catalysts for this speculation, clearly have a poor and superficial understanding of that topic which may help explain our divergent perspectives. The Three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are a complex mix of contradictions and their interrelationship is incoherent. Islam is the bridge between the toe polar opposites, Judaism and Christianity. It shares a very positive view of Yešu with Christianity but shares the strict monotheism of Judaism thus Islam respects both of its two related religious branches. Indeed, were it not for Islamic tolerance, Judaism might well have been successfully expunged by intolerant Christians but, as has occurred with the Persians who saved the Hebrews from their Babylonian exile, Islam is facing existentially genocidal attacks as Israel, with United States assistance, picks off one group of Muslims after another while wealthy Muslim countries watch, perhaps not realizing their turn is coming (reminiscent of the situation criticized by German pastor Martin Niemöller with reference to the cowardice and inaction of spectators during the Nazis’ rise to power, see United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. [2023, April 11] Martin Niemöller: “First they came for the Socialists…”. Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved April 21, 2026, from https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists).
[39] A sort of a digression (again), a sort of silly one this time, I’ve also studied linguistics and words tend to fascinate me. As I wrote the word “espoused” above it occurred to me to reflect on its etymology and how it is related to both marriage on the one hand (spouse) and to support for a cause. I guess both concepts involve “support” albeit in very different senses. According to Chrome, the link involves a “commitment”. Rats! Now I’ve become interested in the etymology of the term “commit” and its use with respect to dedication as opposed to a sort of imprisonment.
[41] Strange as it may seem, the concept of fictitious characters incarnating or “reincarnating” into reality has been explored in both esoteric writing and speculative fiction. See, e.g., Andreev, Daniil (1957, published in English 1997): The Rose of the World (translated by Jordan Roberts); Lindisfarne Books, London. In The Rose of the World (Roza Mira) Mr. Andreev posits that fictional characters are not merely products of the imagination but rather entities that exist in other planes of reality and are channeled by poets and artists. Consequently, he proposed a complex meta-geography where fictional characters can be seen as manifestations or indeed, as beings, either demonic or enlightened, that enter the human consciousness through creative inspiration. Hmmm!!! Pretty interesting.
I’m not a believer in the divinity of a purported Hebrew Palestinian who allegedly lived several millennia ago and is worshipped by billions of people today under names he probably never heard, Jesus for Christians and Isa al-Masih for Muslims. His name, if he indeed lived would have been Yešu, the Aramaic variant of the foregoing Greek and Arabic versions. But while I am not a believer in his divinity and have no way to determine whether he in fact ever existed, I am a profound believer in the fundamental messages that echo in his name: to love one another and treat others as we would have them treat us and to protect the weakest and most humble among us. According to the “gospel” of someone named Matthew, a man who never knew Yešu but claimed to know a great deal about him, Yešu’s teachings might be summarized in eight blessings known as the “beatitudes”, i.e., blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted; blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth; blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled; blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy; blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God; blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God; blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; and, blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
Unfortunately, today, and, to be honest, relatively shortly after they were purportedly uttered, those teachings seem, at least to me, to have been completely distorted, principally by the followers of a certain Pharisee from Tarsus by the name of Saul, a strange man who subsequently went by a Roman name to which he claimed entitlement, Paulus. History knows him as Paul at least in English (Pablo in Spanish, Paulo in Portuguese and Italian, etc.) and ironically, from my perspective, he has been recognized as a saint (although never formally beatified or canonized). Jews, in diverse versions of their Toledot Yeshu claim that he was always one of theirs and that he infiltrated and distorted the embryonic organization of those who initially followed Yešu in order to save Judaism by severing the followers of Yešu into a new religion, one whose members Paul referred to as Χριστιανοί (Christianoí, in English, today Christians). To me, he was, is and always will be, a psychotic fraud.
Based on what many people I care for and respect who consider themselves Christian have indicated to me, the beatitudes have little relevance with respect to what they perceive as a promise of salvation and eternal bliss (as opposed to a threat of damnation and eternal torture). To many, perhaps most of them, the beatitudes are an irrelevance. All that is required is a belief that Yešu is your personal savior and that “salvation” is a gift from the “holy spirit”, an aspect of Yešu and of his purported father, YHWH; a gift that can never be earned regardless of how good a person is. However, that is not a universally held belief among Christians, or among Muslims (a religion that stems from Christianity in a manner similar to the way Christianity stems from Judaism). There is a major dispute among those who consider themselves Christian as to whether or not “belief alone” is enough to attain “salvation” or whether it must be accompanied by “actions” that would be pleasing to Yešu and his father and to (I can’t quite qualify the nature of the relationship) the Holy Spirit. A third variant believes that salvation is a predestined decision by YHWH/Yešu/Holy Spirit who arbitrarily (one assumes, by consensus) pre-select men and women for salvation before they are born (the “elect”). There are tens of thousands of variants of Christianity organized into separate sects, many of which believe that only the members of their sect can attain salvation (plus 144,000 Jews), all others, including other Christians, being destined for “the Pit”, and that salvation will become possible only after Yešu returns to earth to establish a millennial kingdom which can only occur after a battle popularly referred to as Armageddon[1], a worldwide holocaust originating near the ancient Canaanite city of Jerusalem.
Yešu, had he lived and had he been a divine avatar, might have agreed with any of the foregoing hypotheses but if he was merely a man, albeit one with a profound sense of empathy and tolerance and hope and faith in human nature would, if he somehow returned to our world and studied our history, he would in all probability be appalled to see what has been done and what is being done in his name, although perhaps in Paul’s name would be more accurate, given that Christianity is a Pauline invention.
Many Christians, especially fundamentalist Christians in the United States, are thrilled with the conflict currently broiling in the Middle East as the Zionist State of Israel attacks all of its neighbors, engaging in horrific acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing which such Christians see as the prelude to Armageddon and they see the current president of the United States, Donald John Trump and his political movement within the Republican Party (Make America Great Again; “MAGA”) as the divinely inspired catalyst for such event. That perception is rock solid notwithstanding Mr. Trump’s hedonism and alleged pedophilia, with his followers noting that most acts people believe to be anathema and mortal, even cardinal sins[2] are fine (as long as they don’t involve blasphemy) if undertaken by Jews (or on their behalf) against the Goyim (non-Jews) despite the fact that Christians (like them) are irredeemably Goyim. Logic does not seem to be an impediment to such beliefs, rather, illogic is a strong suit in their support, illogic being an essential element of “faith” (see infra).
It is difficult for me to understand how any sane person, especially a well-educated sane person would accept the foregoing, especially one who is among the Goyim, but many people I love and respect somehow do. In order to try and understand the phenomenon, I’ve done quite a bit of historical, philosophical and religious research, something which started when I was very young, although, at that time, not being prescient, my interest in the quest for truth and for a potential divinity was not in response to the situation today. Concurrently with such research I have, during the past decade, tried to understand the demise of concepts like empathy and tolerance which I have always associated with the teachings of Yešu. Indeed, they seem to be at the core of his philosophy but alien to the version of Yešu’s philosophy espoused on his behalf by Paul and, unfortunately, alien to the movement Paul founded purportedly in the name of Yešu. The movement to which so many of my friends belong.
The history of the myriad Pauline religions seems to involve irreconcilable existential internecine conflict, conflict frequently requiring the slaughter of those with differing perspectives in the name of incoherent trivia such as the nature of Yešu, i.e., whether or not he was human, divine or both, and if both, how those natures interacted and which had priority; what the appropriate hierarchical structure of Pauline institutions should be; and, which written accounts of Yešu and diverse humans raised to a semi-divine status as saints, were more or were less accurate. And of course, whether belief “trumps” (pun intended) empathy, tolerance and good works. Many of my friends, way too many, believe that murder, indeed mass murder; indeed genocide and rape and mayhem in the name of the quest for Armageddon and Israeli supremacy, are virtuous, while concurrently believing that economic doctrines that emphasize equality and equity such as promoted by Yešu (e.g., socialism) over property rights are anathema. And their beliefs are somehow centered in their devout Christianity. How weird is that? They explain their posture by citing scripture, chapter and verse, although not quoting Yešu, rather, quoting Paul and his colleagues or, at times, the Hebrew Tanakh
We humans have an amazing capacity to rationalize and to accept the inexplicable as valid based on a concept we refer to as “faith”. “Faith” can purportedly move mountains and not only requires no factual support, but even suggesting that facts might be useful in analyzing beliefs held by faith alone is considered anathema and sinful (e.g., the Trinitarian belief that monotheism is not impacted by the coexistent existence of three independent divine personalities in a single godhead; or, questioning the concept of “free will” where its exercise in a non-approved manner results in eternal damnation; or, the nature of divine love that sentences its subjects to, once again, eternal damnation; or, where a perfect creator’s imperfect creation permits the murder and rape and torture of the innocent). Thus “faith” permits some of my friends to believe in the “sanctity of evil” and in the evil inherent in empathy and tolerance and, of course, the evil inherent in egalitarian concepts such socialism and communism as well as in the supreme importance of peace.[3]
To be honest, after having studied and taught comparative religions and related philosophies for over well over half a century, although I believe that I actually love the concept of Yešu as a philosopher, one akin to Siddhartha Gautama of the Sakya Clan (whose followers refer to as the Buddha), and perhaps even Laozi (formerly Lao Tzu, he of “the Way”) and Zoroaster, the ethical dualist, etc., I find the entirety of the ahistorical Abrahamic cosmogony/cosmology to be not only impossible to credit (absent complete reliance on “faith”), but internally self-destructive and incoherent and, as an example to follow, truly anathema. It is the Abrahamic trilogy of faiths that more than anything else has led us to where we find ourselves: a world where greed, as embodied in the Calvinist concept of the Protestant Ethic, is good and the supremacy of one group of people over others, as in racism and xenophobia is divinely ordained, but that empathy, tolerance and equity are evil; where wars are a positive and peace merely a sign of weakness and lack of ambition. And where the refusal to win at all costs is the surest pathway to perdition.
While based on the context truth may exist independently, in the absence of divinity, it seems that in order to create standards such as good and evil, morality and ethics, we humans invent superior supernatural parental figures but, since we are absolutely imperfect, we do a poor job in the god-creation department and even where we create decent divine examples, we ignore the directives that we ourselves evolutionally attribute to them through our ability to rationalize. That is certainly the case with the Abrahamic religions and may be the case generally. It probably is. Which is why empathy and tolerance, etc., never really had a chance, other than as ideals most of us consign to “utopias” while we live in “dystopias”. Today, April 18, 2026, I see no way out of the above described dilemmas, at least for humanity. I hope that I’m wrong and that recent events in the Middle East and their echoes in the United States have merely brought on a sort of depression. But if I’m not wrong, perhaps if humanity passes away, the planet might be saved, even if it has to start all over again with a new dominant life form. But if it isn’t saved (due to our “bequests”), perhaps our solar system will not notice our virulent demise. And if our solar system does not notice it, certainly our galaxy shouldn’t either. We can only hope that life has not, does not and will not infect other aspects of the multiverse the way we have in our tiny corner of creation.
So, so much for empathy and tolerance and survival.
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
[1] Really a place, or, based on its Hebrew etymology, har məgīddō (הר מגידו), “a mountain” or “a range of hills”.
[2] “Sin” is a strange concept, without a consistent logical connection, and is branched, at least by Christians, into a hierarchy which, from lesser towards anathema, starts with venial sins, then mortal sins, then cardinal sins and culminates in blasphemy. It’s only common link is that sin displeases the divine entity and most displeasing of all appears to be anything that challenges that entity’s claim to supremacy.
[3] On the other hand, in the absence of a defining divinity, good and evil, morals, ethics, etc., may only be human concepts unaligned with nature and “relativists” among us argue that values are really non-existent so, in that case, … Never mind.
The triumphalism on all sides with regard to the two week suspension on the Israeli orchestrated United States attacks on Iran seems counterproductive. No one has won and everyone has lost, especially the sense of decency in international affairs, the concept of “law” (not just internationally but constitutionally) and, of course, the families of all the victims who have been murdered. Murdered just as surely as victims continue to be murdered in armed conflicts where the only victors are the military industrial complex against which Ike warned us well over half a century ago. We humans are easily manipulated and induced to engage in inhuman conduct and inherent hypocrisy, assisted by our ability to profoundly express moral and religious beliefs which we cavalierly ignore, usually in the name of false patriotism and purportedly in an incoherently misdirected quest for security, all desensitized by “bread and circuses” (but without the bread).
Diplomacy has become nonexistent, especially among the states that comprise the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But it’s also become non-existent among the victims of that (purportedly) defensive alliance; victims who seem more interested in antagonizing mad bulls than in manipulating them (as the wise-weak once did in artful forms of agonizing savage bulls). But then again, those bulls had been tamed and drugged after having been captured and imprisoned and thus, the metaphor does not quite fit, except perhaps as a visual aid. Name calling, insulting and cursing; threats; imposition of economic sanctions designed to cause starvation; kidnapping and murdering of opposition leaders, those are the new norms and norms tend to be copied. Just noting. While the foregoing deterioration of the polite and subtle discourse that once characterized foreign services is accelerating, accelerating in alarming fashion, it is not all that new. It’s been a growing trend for at least half a century. Or perhaps for a millennium or two. And while diplomacy tends to involve inter-state affairs, the trend has leaked into the domestic sphere, now characterizing domestic politics as well. But it hasn’t stopped there. Check your social media; Yankees’ fans have really caught on. And the exchange of information at all levels has become the art of disinformation, artful disinformation so-to-speak. B.F. Skinner’s legacy, the gift that keeps on giving is now freed from Madison Avenue and Hollywood. It’s become ubiquitously omnipresent, now enhanced by artificial intelligence. Empathy??? Hmmm, what’s that?
As a historian, political analyst and commentator I look at what is reported as news today and which will soon calcify into purported history and ask myself how much of what we’ve been taught, how much of what I’ve taught, about the unending armed conflicts we humans engage and have engaged in since we evolved into our most primitive forms as members of the homo genus series of species; forms that purportedly separated us from the ancestors of our simian cousins, or perhaps from the first spark of life, is even partially accurate. Certainly some of it has to be even if only by pure coincidence or perhaps, carelessness. But most of it is not. Is it any wonder then that we seemingly learn absolutely nothing from our devastating mistakes, mistakes we refuse to admit and which we paper over with noble sounding platitudes?
Today, because of the resemblance to the attitudes preceding the first and second wars to end all wars, World War comes to mind. At its conclusion purportedly back and white distinctions between the combatants were drawn, albeit only after research into critical interpretative factors was made illegal. Made criminal, formally and culturally, with those who questioned official narratives labeled immoral deviants. World War II, like World War I, turned out to be a war in which the victors who wrote the history were at least as evil as the vanquished, although following World War II the leaders of the vanquished were executed in what now seem to have been show trials held in the vanquished city of Nuremburg. In hindsight, the victors, the ones who first engaged in nuclear warfare after having engaged in their own forms of genocide for millennia seem more evil than those who they conquered, … well, conquered again. And again and again and again. Now, I ask myself, and I ask those who chance to read this article, has anything we’ve been taught about that horrible conflict actually proven to have been accurate? Consider this: the purported victims of the Nazis whose protection was a purportedly existential obligation have, during more than three quarters of a century, acted no differently with respect to Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, etc., than did their purported victimizers acted with respect to them. Genocide then was evil, today it’s necessary to combat terrorism (which is what the Nazis and Japanese and Italians claimed they were doing way back when). And unprovoked sneak attacks? Well they apparently no longer involve “days that will live in infamy” but rather, days of national pride. And nuclear weapons? Well, they were briefly anathema but now they’re to be hoarded for possible use, when and if convenient. The names and faces have been changed as detective sergeant Joe Friday might have said on the old television series Dragnet (back in simpler times) but, in this case, they’ve been changed to protect the guilty rather than the innocent.
Thus we find ourselves where we are.
Devastatingly polarized and confused by the ever changing variants of “official” verities just as B.F. Skinner’s nemesis (well, other than Noam Chomsky), Eric Arthur Blair writing as George Orwell presciently predicted three quarters of a century ago (just before he prudently died, leaving us to fend for ourselves). _____
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
I firmly believe that if any president of the United States has ever deserved to be impeached, it would be Donald J. Trump. He has made high crimes and misdemeanors an art form, primarily those crimes declared to be against humanity at Nuremburg, and he has also rendered the Constitution of the United States a nonsensical decoration. The latter has impacted the entire system of governance, especially the ill-named Department of Justice. His claim that he is responsible to no authority other than his own sense of what is moral defines a “dictator”, not in the classical Roman sense, but in the sense of a Führer, perhaps reflective of his German ancestry. Having said that however, the concept of impeachment has been rendered an abusive and incoherent political football, and not just by the Democratic Party’s two ludicrous impeachments of Mr. Trump during his first term of office but by the equally ludicrous impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton by the Republicans in the 1990s and even by the impeachment of Andrew Johnson following the Civil War. It is a case of maniacal boys and girls somehow elected to the United States House of Representatives who have been crying wolf for so long that the wolves have taken over. And if Mr. Trump deserves impeachment for his unconscionable and unconstitutional actions during his second term, what of the Congress that on, a bipartisan basis, has refused to assume its responsibilities, not only with respect to war powers, but with respect to real governmental oversight. Today’s government oversight hearings are merely polarizing public spectacles of the bread and circus variety, without the bread. And our judiciary, meant to assure that the foregoing would not occur is and since at least 2013 has been a politicized mess with no respect for laws.
On April 10 of this year, 2026, retired Judge Andrew Napolitano, formerly a conservative commentator on Fox News, published an interesting article[1]. Interesting not only because of its substance but because of its style, one reminiscent of Martin Luther’s ninety-five theses and of the method employed by Socrates millennia ago to enlighten his pupils. It was entirely comprised of questions. Questions worth reading and questions on which profound reflection is merited. Questions, in a sense, somehow related to my introductory observations. The realities reflected in my introductory paragraph and in Judge Napolitano’s article[2] make two things obvious: neither our democracy nor our constitution are functional. Sacred, yes, just as “Holy Scripture” is sacred to many, but not to be taken seriously. And they’re not taken seriously. Neither Holy Scriptures nor our current Constitution, one rendered incoherent through sometimes idealistic but ill-conceived amendments[3].
So, what’s to be done?
My suggestion, one I and others have made for over half a century, is one political parties of all stripes find anathema[4], the one thing they all agree cannot take place, a new constitutional convention. They abhor the concept because they uniformly agree that the People assembled as the principal and primary constituent, assembled as “We the People”, cannot be trusted, regardless of platitudes such as “sovereignty resides in and emanates from the People”. However, our Founding Fathers did provide a mechanism for such an eventuality, one they provided in the Constitution itself. In relevant part, Article V of the United States Constitutions states “… on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, [Congress] shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which … shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes as Part of this Constitution when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress….”.
As of early 2026, the movement for a state sponsored constitutional convention, one technically known as an Article V convention, had gained significant momentum with the project having been adopted by legislatures in 20 states. To trigger the first-ever Article V convention in U.S. history, 34 states must pass “matching resolutions on the same topic”, 14 more need to do so. The following are the most likely 14 states to join the project: Iowa (passed in one chamber previously); Wyoming (passed in one chamber previously); North Carolina (passed in one chamber previously); South Dakota (passed in one chamber previously); Virginia (passed in one chamber previously); New Hampshire (passed in one chamber previously); New Mexico (passed in one chamber previously); Kentucky (being actively targeted during 2026); Ohio (being actively targeted during 2026); Pennsylvania (being actively targeted during 2026); New Jersey (being actively targeted during 2026); Washington (being actively targeted during 2026); Illinois (being actively targeted during 2026); and, Minnesota (considered a swing state for the movement).
A real constitution, one binding and enforced and reflective of the popular will, one percolated from below rather than imposed from above or by corrupt elites would go a long way towards depolarizing our divided citizenry and making our government functional rather than dysfunctional[5]. A constitution crafted to make truth in the media a viable option and to make non-interference by foreign powers in United States politics a binding rule, one that prioritized government expenditures so that the “Common Welfare” came first and foreign intervention was banned (as George Washington once urged), one that depoliticized the judiciary. One resolving the issue of whether or not the United States should remain true to its immigrant roots or discard them and which democratically resolved the issue of whether the United States should return to its federal premises or become a unitary state, perhaps a bottoms up unitary state with most power focused in county governments. All of the foregoing would go a long way towards achieving and maintain the so called “American Dream”.
Of course, a constitution that does not reflect the popular political culture is useless as the Weimer Republic which gave rise to the Nazis made clear. Our political culture also needs a great deal of work. A return to empathy reflective of the so called Golden Rule and to mutual respect recognizing the value of differences of opinion, rather than their ridicule.
I wonder which of the two would be more difficult to attain: constitutional or cultural reform.
And I wonder if we are not already past a point of cultural no return? _____
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
[2] The main difference between Judge Napolitano’s perspective and mine is that he still believes the current United States Constitution is viable. I do not.
[4] And that includes third parties like the Libertarian and Green parties and many others.
[5] The term “dysfunctional” is not synonymous with non-functional, it implies functionality but in pain. “Non-functional might well be significantly better as the late Judge, Gideon J. Tucker noted in a 1866 decision when he wrote “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session”, a quote later made famous by the late, great author and social commentator, Mark Twain and comedian Will Rogers.
It’s Easter Sunday in 2026; a holiday the diverse branches and twigs of Christianity (there are so many of them) can agree on given that it’s based on the Hebrew version of the lunar calendar rather than on the calendars established by Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory XIII. It’s a strange holiday this year, a year that is a sort of culmination in a cycle of genocide, ethnic cleansing and orchestrated Islamophobia that has disclosed that international law and human rights have always been illusions, perhaps more accurately delusions, and that the purported hopes of a certain Hebrew carpenter and civic leader from Palestine for equity and decency have, for two millennia, been used as a diversion to facilitate control of humanity by the worst among us. War in the name of peace, hatred and polarization in the name of love and inequity in the name of equity and justice.
My Christian friends, or at least many of them, too many, shrug their shoulders at the foregoing and note that humans are imperfect. Then, in too many cases, they enthusiastically support obvious evil cleverly disguised as patriotism.
I am not a believer in the divinity of Yešu the Nazarene but I am a believer in his message of social justice and his golden rule and so, every holiday dedicated to him is for me, a day of shame.
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
Today, if you’re Christian or Muslim, it’s Holy Saturday, the Great Sabbath, Easter Eve or Black Saturday, take your pick. The day (the only full day) that Yešu of Nazareth purportedly spent visiting the nether regions deep in the bowels of somewhere.
People seem to think he spent three days there communing with the damned, or perhaps, the not-yet-saved might be a better term, but it only lasted, at most (if it lasted at all) from approximately three in the afternoon, Jerusalem time, on Friday until sometime before dawn on the following Sunday, so it was primarily a Sabbath sojourn among some of the most entertaining and merry people who had ever purportedly lived, although perhaps not as merry as they’d once been.
If the myth has any validity which, who knows, it might, I wonder what Yešu did that day and the parts of Friday afternoon and evening and Sunday between midnight and dawn. He did seem to love sinners and there may well have been many in that metaphorical Limbo. Limbo because, according to Christians and Muslims, no one had yet been saved so everyone was there. Not even the Catholic purgatory had yet come into being although, given that the Great Sacrifice had just come to pass, it must have been a chaos of sorting going on between the good, the evil and the somewhere-in-between. Perhaps Yešu helped with that.
It’s a strange “feast” day Christians live today. And Muslims as well. Muslims are big Yešu fans. For Jews on the other hand, it’s business as usual, except that one cannot conduct business on the Sabbath. _____
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
Guillermo Calvo Mahé 