On the Pumpkinification of Trump

In Imagine Stultitiae Divinae

Sep 25, 2026

Pumpkinification: the deification or worship of an empty gourd. In Imagine Stultitiae Divinae: in praise of folly.

Ancient Romans believed in The Fates, or the Parcae; the Greeks called them Moirai. These Fates were three sisters who wove the threads of every life, mortal and immortal, even the gods themselves. One sister spun the thread, at birth; a second measured the length; the last had shears to cut the thread, which determined the time and manner of death. At death, most mortals went to the underworld, ruled by Hades. Emperors of Rome, the Caesars, were deified, made gods, Romans believed.

With exceptions. I’ll get to that. But first, let’s connect that ancient belief to today’s politics. Back in 2015, when a certain septuagenarian descended a certain golden elevator in the lobby of his building in New York City, and declared in effect that the United States should no longer be a haven for the world, but instead a walled garden, weeding out the bad crops, I wrote that Donald J. Trump should not be written off as so many pundits and political advisers believed. I called him the “Great White Hope of the Uninformed Voter.”

In 2016, Trump was so toxic that National Review dedicated an entire magazine issue to “Against Trump.” Many of the writers who contributed to that compilation have become stalwart opponents of the once and current president. But not all.

The MAGA cohort believed that the Fates had ordained this avatar of All Good Things that had been taken away by the soft, socialist, radical rabble of the left, to be their mouth, or as Trump said during the 2016 GOP convention during his nomination speech, their VOICE. There is a difference. A mouth expels words in the same way the other end vents flatulence. A mouth also consumes to enable that other end’s odiferous wind. A voice speaks, and a voice of the people speaks the words that represents the people’s desires, grievances, dreams, and hopes.

Barack Obama has a voice. He is even eloquent as he speaks the desires, grievances, dreams, and hopes of those who trust him. I don’t agree with much of what Obama says, and some of what he says he knows isn’t true, or can’t happen. In contrast, Donald Trump has a mouth. And what a mouth he has.

Yet that mouth got him elected in 2016, because the Great White Hope convinced the uninformed voter that he had something more than just a mouth. Faced with the choice of Hillary Clinton, who can never borrow her husband’s voice to replace her own mouth, those who were disappointed with Obama trusted the Fates to bring Trump, and by 2020 they learned their lesson.

But then they forgot once again, and Democrats, grasping so tightly for complete control, committed such gruesome political malpractice, that the Fates elevated Trump to the position of near-martyr, willing to die for his cause. Faced with the choice of Kamala Harris, who has neither voice nor big mouth to speak of, or the Great White Hope, the uninformed voters doubled down on the mouth they rejected in 2020.

Ancient Rome has much to teach us. Immediately preceding the emperor Claudius Caesar was one of the worst tyrants to assume the laurel crown, Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, better known by his nickname, Caligula. Caligula was likely a psychopath who enjoyed killing others, a paranoid who trusted no-one (except his horse, Incitatus, which he attempted to elevate to the high position of Consul). Upon Caligula’s murder by his own Praetorian Guard, the only heir of Augustus left alive to assume the throne was Claudius.

According to the biographer Suetonius, Claudius was not the brightest man. He stumbled in speech, was jerky in his motions, certainly not graceful in any way; he was indecisive in doing anything, preferring to yield to his advisers. He was also quite boorish, declaring it fit to display flatulence at his table.

Claudius was widely thought of as an idiot.

During his rule, in defense of his honor and position, he claimed in a speech that he only feigned being an imbecile in order to escape Caligula’s endless purges. He was allowed to live in large part because Caligula ignored him as no threat, while much better and honorable men were put to death for no good reason.

The public did not buy it.

In response, an anonymous writer circulated a pamphlet with the Greek title Moron epanastasis, or “Resurrection of Fools,” sometimes known as “Rising of the Morons.” The thrust of the pamphlet was simple: no one can successfully fake stupidity. He who consistently acts like a fool, is one.

This theme continued past Claudius’s death by poison, believed to be possibly orchestrated by his own successor and adopted son, Nero. Nero gave Claudius a lavish funeral, declared Claudius defied, as Caesars were believed to be gods, yet left his tomb undecorated and even mocking of the dead ruler. A satirical play by Seneca, mostly lost to history, was called Apocolocyntosis, or “Pumpkinification” of the expired Claudius. It was set in the heavens, where the gods would decide whether Claudius could join them among the immortals.

“Pumpkins” in ancient Rome meant gourds, which were used as empty vessels. To deify a pumpkin is to worship an empty head, the head of an idiot. In Seneca’s biting satire, the gods voted to deny Claudius a place among the immortals, and instead to send him to Hades, god of the underworld. As he is led from heaven, Claudius witnesses his own funeral, then descends to meet Caligula, who makes him his slave.

We are today seeing the Pumpkinification of politics. It was not enough that Donald Trump would destroy the Republican Party. That was assured the moment he took control of the RNC’s funding, merging it with his own election campaign. It was not enough that Trump, in his second term, has appointed the broadest panoply of gourd-heads in his cabinet, possibly the emptiest heads ever assembled in the American government. It is not enough that Trump has attempted every illegal, unconstitutional, and illiberal method to assume dictatorial power, control the media, and exert economic control of this nation. It is not enough that he has initiated wars, without winning or even losing them.

Trump has not only destroyed the GOP, he has also largely destroyed the Democratic Party. At least the Democrats can claw their way out of the pit of destruction. The GOP cannot, having been permanently stained by the near auto-golpe on January 6, 2021, and its complete failure to bring those responsible for it to justice, or hold them to account.

Yet, while Trump is president, those around him have continued to deify him. And those who say they are merely calling “balls and strikes” have pumpkinfied politics by claiming a fool can only be acting like a moron without actually being one.

It’s not just about breaking tradition. There is a tradition of U.S. presidents not meeting foreign leaders at the airport when their flights arrive. President Trump met China’s President Jinping Xi at the airport. Xi did not meet Trump at the airport when he visited Beijing. Meeting a foreign leader, especially an economic and military rival, as he lands in our country is an act of subservience. Again, it’s not just breaking tradition, it’s also speaking volumes about the United States, as its head of state.

President Trump flew to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin flew to Alaska because it was the only place he could fly without exposing himself to danger, there being an active war going on with Ukraine (and Ukraine’s war capabilities should not be underestimated). Also because most nations would never let Putin land on their territory should something untoward occur. It’s just a hop over the Bering Strait to get to Alaska, without overflying any other nation or entering its airspace. Trump met Putin’s plane and gave him a hero’s welcome.

That’s two rival nations, both nuclear powers, both more-or-less aligned to each other, and our president, as head of state, giving them the equivalent of a triumph on our soil.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un would not leave his own soil, but Trump met him on Kim’s terms in 2019. The meeting seemed historic at the time, but as happens with the implacable North Korean government, it came to nothing. We should have learned.

That’s three rival, even hostile, nations aligned against us that have received honors from our head of state.

I am waiting for Trump to visit Tehran. I don’t think they’d meet him at the airport (except to end him). Or maybe he will invite the mullahs to Washington, or Camp David, to meet with him, as an alternative to his empty threats of annihilation. He can meet them at the airport.

These are not the acts of a statesman, or a person concerned with the issues affecting Americans, even the ones who have pumpkinified him. These are the actions of a nascent Caesar, a Claudius who wants to be Nero, but can’t decide.

Nero set fire to Rome and rejoiced at its burning. He threw tantrums when other kings who had shown fealty to Rome as allies turned on him. He fled when his own legions turned on him after he had ruined and murdered so many. Rome was a bloody place; but ruination is the same today as it was in those days.

President Trump has betrayed, humiliated, and harmed our allies, weakening our alliances, even to the point where our closest ally, Canada, has turned on him. The world loves the United States, just like the western world loved Rome in those days. But the world hates Trump.

My question is, how much longer will those who worship a gourd continue in their folly? How long will the Republican Party sit idly by while Claudius, or Nero, sets fire to everything it has worked to build?

Or will the party simply burn to the ground, and be replaced by something new? This November very well may mark the beginning of 40 years Democratic Party rule. If that happens, despite every effort, legal or extralegal, to stop it by Trump and his Trumpkins, we will find out if the pumpkin heads realize their god has been cast out of the hall of immortals, while still on this earth.

It would make vicious satire, if nothing else.

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