The Rumble Strips Are Gone. Something is wrong. And nobody around him will say it.
Posted by Sia on June 8, 2026, 1:52 pm ADMIN
Sia: I agree with Adam on this 100%.
Kinsinger is a Republican, but he's one of the few good ones left. While we disagree on how to accomplish and address so many important issues and problems, I respect him as having used critical thinking, honesty, and his own life experiences to come to the differing opinions and conclusions he has - based on observations of the same facts as I use. Not on lies or imaginary situations like so many of the bad Republicans beholden to trump do.
The Rumble Strips Are Gone Something is wrong. And nobody around him will say it.
by Adam Kinzinger - Jun 8
Sorry for the picture, didn’t meant to scare ya, but I just had to
On Sunday morning, the President of the United States sat down with NBC’s Kristen Welker for a Meet the Press interview and walked out of it. Not metaphorically. He got up, said “You’re a one-sided crooked network… I’ve had enough,” and left.
He is 79 years old. He is the most powerful person on Earth. And he couldn’t finish an interview.
That moment, uncomfortable as it was to watch, wasn’t really about Kristen Welker. She asked him about his $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund—money earmarked to reward people who claim government persecution, including January 6th participants. She pushed back on his claim that FBI agents had “ushered” rioters into the Capitol. She said there was no evidence. He insisted there was “tremendous evidence.” She held her ground. He couldn’t handle it.
So he left.
Let me say what a lot of people are thinking but few in his orbit will ever say out loud: this is not normal behavior for a president, and the pattern right now is alarming.
WE are the rumblestrips! Without us, we’d be in a ditch forever with a smoking engine and passerby’s shaking their heads. Join us in this battle, become a paid or free subscriber!
The Week That Tells the Story
Take a step back and look at just the last few days, because the picture they paint together is striking.
Saturday, June 6th was the 82nd anniversary of D-Day. Thousands of young Americans stormed the beaches of Normandy in 1944—wading through surf, cut down in the sand, dying so that Europe might be free. It is one of the most sacred dates on the American calendar. Previous presidents, regardless of party, have treated it with reverence.
Donald Trump spent D-Day posting AI-generated videos of himself to Truth Social. Himself riding a camel. Himself skydiving with a red parachute. Himself walking through cheering crowds. He also posted an AI-generated image of the future Obama Presidential Library rendered as a giant garbage can surrounded by homeless encampments, and took shots at a federal judge blocking his White House ballroom project.
Not a word about the boys on the beaches. Not one.
The White House quietly issued a written statement—drafted by staff, not the president—that briefly acknowledged the anniversary. But from the man himself? Nothing but a digital hall of mirrors reflecting his own image back at him. Meanwhile, the reflecting pool is blue. If you haven’t been following this particular episode of American surrealism, here’s the summary: Trump had the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool—one of the most iconic, historically resonant public spaces in the world—repainted “American flag blue.” Not the quiet gray of stone and water that has framed the Capitol skyline for over a century. A vivid, swimming-pool blue. Historians were appalled. Preservationists sued. The project ballooned to nearly $20 million. Critics noted the final product looks remarkably similar to the pool at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump has been obsessed with defending it. Multiple posts. Intense personal investment in a paint job. And then there is Iran. One hundred days into a war that was launched without a declaration of Congress, against an enemy we were in active negotiations with when the bombs dropped. Iran’s Supreme Leader is dead. The region is on fire. The war is deeply unpopular—historically so. Four Republicans broke with the party to pass a War Powers Resolution rebuking the president. Iran has rejected his peace plan. Iran called him “deceitful” and denied that negotiations he claimed were happening were happening at all.
Trump’s response has been to insist this doesn’t contradict his campaign promise of “no new wars.” So to recap the week: ignored D-Day, obsessed over a paint job, got embarrassed on the world stage by Iran, and then stormed off a television set when a journalist asked him a hard question.
This is the President of the United States.
The Rumble Strips
I want to offer a theory I’ve been sitting with for a while, because I think it explains a lot of what we’re watching—not just with Trump, but with a particular class of people who reach the absolute summit of wealth or power.
Think about driving on a highway at night. You get a little tired, your mind wanders, and you start drifting toward the shoulder. And then you feel it: that jarring brrrrr under your tires. The rumble strips. They exist for one purpose—to tell you that you are leaving the road and that you need to correct course. They don’t argue with you. They don’t negotiate. They just make it impossible to ignore the fact that you are about to drive off the highway.
Here’s the thing about billionaires—and about presidents who surround themselves only with loyalists: they have no rumble strips.
I know this from personal experience, from the other direction. I served in Congress for over a decade. In that world, I had rumble strips everywhere. If I said something stupid, a colleague would pull me aside. If I was about to vote the wrong way, my staff would flag it. If I showed up somewhere in a ridiculous outfit, my family would make fun of me until I went and changed. And don’t even think about doing something stupid around my military buddies! I had people around me whose job—formal or informal—was to tell me the truth. Not because they were paid to flatter me. Because they knew me, they respected me, and they understood that letting me drive off the road wasn’t kindness. It was negligence.
That’s not how it works when you have unlimited money or unchecked power.
If a billionaire walks into a board meeting wearing an orange shirt with pink pants, every single person in that room tells him it’s a genius fashion choice. Not because it is. Because their job, their bonus, their access—all of it—depends on the billionaire feeling good. Nobody laughs. Nobody says hey, maybe reconsider. The rumble strips have been paved over. The road just gets wider and smoother and more forgiving, right up until the moment it doesn’t.
I’ve seen this with tech billionaires who start believing their own mythology and make catastrophic business decisions while their inner circle applauds. I’ve seen it with Wall Street titans who surround themselves with yes-men until the whole thing collapses. And I am watching it, in real time, with the President of the United States.
Donald Trump has not had a genuine rumble strip in years—arguably in decades. The people around him now are not advisors in any meaningful sense. They are validators. Some are true believers; some are opportunists; some are simply afraid. But none of them are doing what a real advisor does, which is look the boss in the eye and say: Sir, you cannot skip D-Day to post AI videos of yourself. Sir, the reflecting pool fight is making you look unhinged. Sir, you need to get in front of the Iran situation before it becomes your Iraq.
Nobody is saying it. So nobody is hearing it. And the car keeps drifting. What We’re Watching
I want to be careful here, because I am not a psychiatrist and I’m not going to play one on Substack. But I think we are allowed—we are obligated, even—to look at the behavioral pattern and ask hard questions.
A man who cannot sit through a challenging interview. Who spends the anniversary of the greatest military sacrifice in American history posting AI videos of himself. Who is emotionally consumed by whether a reflecting pool is the right shade of blue while a war he started spirals into a quagmire. Who responds to congressional rebuke not with reflection but with defiance. Who, when Iran calls him a liar on the world stage, simply repeats the lie louder.
This is not strength. This is not confidence. This is a person who is not receiving honest information, not tolerating honest feedback, and not processing reality in a way that connects to what the rest of us can see.
History has examples of leaders who reached this point—insulated, flattered, unchallenged, and gradually untethered from the feedback loops that keep human judgment grounded. It rarely ends well. For them, or for the people they’re supposed to be leading.
The rumble strips are gone. The road feels smooth. And the car is drifting.
He is an emotionally behaviorally disturbed child. He needs a mother to tell him "no" and mean it.
He screwed up celebration and fun plans countless New Yorkers planned, just to show up to a game he doesn't care about, just to be seen. Businesses for blocks around Madison Square Garden had to shut down for HIS security. He was booed. My favorite chant?
"Go Knicks! Fvck Trump!"
he fell asleep at the game and left early. Will he show up for Game 4 on Wednesday?
Posted by Sia on June 9, 2026, 6:24 pm, in reply to "Felon needs a mother" ADMIN
He is supposedly a Knicks fan, but a POTUS doesn't do something like that, disrupting multiple city blocks when he could easily watch it on the white house without causing problems for thousands of people.
Too bad it wasn't said when he told them he was running again in '24. SAY ‘NO’ TO WAR! RESIST!
It's too bad...
Posted by Skye on June 9, 2026, 9:46 am, in reply to "Well said"
that he wasn't impeached and removed after Jan 6. That lapse set the stage for everything that has happened since. It's criminal what he has and continues to get away with.
I wish that one of the reporters he continues to insult and disparage falsely would stand up to him just once and tell him that he is the most corrupt, dishonest, nasty, hypocritical and incompetent president in US history... and then cite the evidence to back up their claim.
Yes, that was unbelievable
Posted by greenman on June 9, 2026, 12:22 pm, in reply to "It's too bad..." Valued Poster
So many in this country were (and are) in ABSOLUTE denial over that attack, a virtual coup attempt. I think it was partly disbelief and partly denial. But it hurt our country that it was not only tolerated, but that NO ONE has really been punished for it since Trump's pardons released the culprits.
And now they're to be REWARDED for insurrection. Incredible. SAY ‘NO’ TO WAR! RESIST!
His whole career is unbelievable. He lies every day, making the unbelievable believable to those who
He started out lying about Obama's birth certificate... then he lied about the crowd size of his first inauguration... then about the "fake news media"... and it's just been constant lies ever since. So now the unbelievable is believable in trumpworld. They just eat it up, as they'd rather believe in or benefit from his lies than believe their own lying eyes due to the hate and fear he has instilled and played upon in them. Another day, another big lie and thousands of smaller ones.
And now he has made it clear that he will do everything he can to reward those who defend him and his lies, and punish those who do not. Now he wants his loyalists (and others) to fear HIM even more than all those 'DEI' or 'woke' people he worked so hard getting people to hate and fear.
Thankfully, more and more trump voters actively oppose him because
he has made ZERO effort to actually HELP any of them. In fact, he has deliberately HARMED them because he no longer needs them, never cared about them in the first place, and probably doesn't even understand how his actions have injured them. He has even said that he doesn't care or even think about their needs.
At this point, his supporters are down to only those so heavily invested in believing him that they can't let go, those who never pay the slightest attention to the news or politics, and those actively benefitting from his corruption.
The GOP basically hates him but fear him more. As him numbers continue to crater and he wipes out long-time, favored representatives and senators from office, his "power" grows dimmer. I expect a revolt by the GOP before his term ends unless he dies first.
That about sums it up. Until the fear is gone they will continue to do his bidding.
What would it take? The aforementioned shooting on Fifth Ave? Dancing naked on the White House lawn, feeding the squirrels? I don't even know anymore. SAY ‘NO’ TO WAR! RESIST!
It is hard to imagine what he could do that would make them all actively turn on him
because he's already gone SO FAR OTT with antics & blatant corruption that would have quickly destroyed anyone else and caused him to not only be run out of office by congress, but prosecuted and jailed as well.
I'm not even sure that starting a global nuclear war would shake some of his most devoted voters off. It appears to be only a culmination of multiple severely negative financial repercussions to his own voters that has dented his armor causing plummeting support in the polls.
Thing is, he is SO VICIOUS and willing to do ANYTHING to force compliance that the entire GOP is afraid of him. His hold on gullible voters is stronger than steel and, until recently, has shown minimal weakening.
It is beyond pathetic that most of the GOP is THAT terrified of him! If they'd only recognize that sticking TOGETHER would kneecap him even now and very likely would have prevented him getting so much power to destroy careers to begin with.
One of the first things I learned on the playground is that you cannot appease a bully by repeatedly "saying uncle". No matter how small a/o powerless you are, ONLY standing up to the bully will stop them targeting and pounding on you and it just might provoke others who want to stop being bullied themselves to join you in that resistance. Standing up to bullies undermines their ruthless power to scare others into compliance out of fear of being pummeled and targeted. It essentially renders them toothless, paper tigers.
The biggest problem is his still viable ability to destroy individual elected officials' credibility and careers. So even with such strong opposition to him by millions more voters than before, he can still ruin GOP members so most are too greedy, corrupt, ambitious, and afraid of crossing him.
That said, eventually that ability to unseat elected officials will cross the threshold and radically collapse. There's only so far down in support by voters that he can go before the power flips against him.
If he doesn't die beforehand, I predict that before mid 2027 that he'll lose enough of his previous voter support to become so impotent that he'll FINALLY collapse into a blubbering ball of raging rubble, pitching unhinged fits of rage, spewing horrific insults, and making death threats that he'll require sedation and hospitalization. That's IF he doesn't implode and die on the spot during his unhinged scream-fests.
History will right the ship, but, for now, too many actually believe trump's idiotic LIES!
That is the problem with prolific, pathological, born LIARS!
Reasonable people catch the errors and begin to doubt the story. However, those invested in believing liars for any number of personal reasons find excuses and justification for any gaps in reason or timelines. If heavily invested, they may assign a liar's stumbling gibberish, stammering excuses, or trying to "fix obvious errors" down to understandable mistakes or them being nervous & feeling attacked. Therefore they may readily believe a liars claims of conspiracy against them or the accuser being jealous or even to be a liar themselves. So they jump aboard the denial train and invest more into it moving forward, increasing their need to protect their belief in the lies.
The greater the investment anyone has with the liar (love relationships, political beliefs, defiant public acceptance that triggers their own fears of rejection or embarrassment, etc) the greater the willingness to overlook the obvious clues that someone is actually a bald-faced liar.
If the liar resorts to attacking the accusers as being deceptive, unfair, jealous, politically motivated, stupid, ignorant, or flat out wrong, it gives the believer the opportunity to replace potential suspicion, uncertainty, or a nagging feeling of doubt with anger at the attacker rather than at the liar. Especially if the liar is able to bring the believer into an "us vs them" mentality.
They begin separating individual lies from one another to avoid having to defend the liar's too often nonsensical or diametrically opposed claims and abandon critical thinking so they don't have to recognize their own unconscious, nagging doubts and fears. Those doubts are replaced with a fight or flight response where they actively attack those who point out the lies or they put their fingers in their ears refusing to hear the evidence against the liar.
Eventually, all but the dumbest or most devoted believers can no longer deny what they see or hear with their own eyes & ears. When that happens they either withdraw, becoming significantly jaded OR they go on the offensive, viciously attacking the one(s) who'velied to and tricked them into believing bullsh!t.
We'veall seen the polls showing significant disbelief amongst former believers. It is only going to grow.
What is causing former believers to abandon trump is
For example, running on NO NEW WARS/CONFLICTS and stopping those already happening before his reelection, then deliberately waging war on Iran, invading Venezuela to topple its leadership, going after Greenland, etc.
Claiming that gas and food prices are way down on his watch as he'd claimed they'd be when EVERYONE can see that gas prices are nearly DOUBLED and food prices are WAY up. In fact, EVERYTHING costs more!
Claiming to "save" manufacturing jobs and the coal industry when both are considerably worse off.
Claiming that his idiotic tariffs would be paid for by exporting companies when it is undeniable that American consumers are paying them.
Then having the nerve to claim that consumers would get refund checks related to those tariffs reversed in court when only some businesses have gotten any refunds.
Claiming he would save family farms but actually destroying thousands of them because he destroyed their export markets with his ill considered tariffs.
Claiming to focus deportation on known criminals (the worst of the worst) but deporting millions of needed seasonal farm & construction workers without criminal records.
Claiming to protect Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security when he's slashed Medicaid and tried to slash Medicare and Social Security as well as demolishing the Obamacare subsidies his own voters rely on most!
Demolishing the east wing of the white house, his destruction at the Kennedy Center, his stupid DC arch plans to honor himself, destroying the beloved white house rose garden. Constructing a UFC(?) cage on the lawn of the white house to stage a FOR PROFIT cage match! Ignoring D-Day. Mistreating veterans and cutting VA benefits.
And so on...
Anyone watching him spew his nonsense can't fail to see his mental and physical decline. It's harder and harder to dismiss his ever-increasing obvious lies, temper tantrums, bruised and swollen hands and ankles. His tweets and "truths" are growing increasingly unhinged.
His days are numbered and growing short. It wouldn't surprise me if he suddenly died. (I wouldn't miss him one single iota!) He's gotten SO crazy that it also wouldn't surprise me if Vance pounced on getting rid of him via the 25th Amendment directly after the midterms when Pubbies inevitably lose power and greater support for dumping trump follows.
I hope you are right and that many are or will abandon him. Seems a little late, but better late than never. Some may not vote blue, but will stay home?
I'm afraid it will be a long road to recovery. Trust is virtually gone, on so many levels.
I left out one HUGE reason: Failure to release the complete Epstein files, as promised.
trump made a big deal of claiming the files contained dozens of Democrats that he was going to out.
It was one of his biggest lies to MAGAts who were counting on the release. Refusing to release more than half of the files along with redacting most of the men's names but leaving victim's names visible infuriated millions of Americans, both supporters of trump and those who oppose and typically despise him.
Most Americans, including MAGAts, hate pedophiles and rapists. Those they *believe* are anyway.
**Edited to fix a spelling typo
I'd pay to see that!
Posted by Sia on June 9, 2026, 11:28 am, in reply to "It's too bad..." ADMIN
on June 8, 2026, 1:52 pm
