Trump vs Leo XIV! (Or, the Shape of a Manufactured Squabble)

April 15, 2026 10:07 am

And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns, like a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon. And he executed all the power of the former beast in his sight; and he caused the earth, and them that dwell therein, to adore the first beast, whose wound to death was healed. And he did great signs, so that he made also fire to come down from heaven unto the earth in the sight of men….

The Hobson’s Choice. The false dilemma. The binary trap. If you’ve been with me we’ve been exploring these societal concepts and patterns for some time.

And they continue to prove, if not true yet, certainly worthy of discussion.

The Catholic world has been the recipient of two of these patterns in recent weeks. On the heels of a Novus Ordo vs SSPX public spectacle, this week we are being made privy by our anti-Christ public media sources a-totally-real-and-organic spat between Donald Trump and Robert Prevost, otherwise known as Pope Leo XIV.

There is something too perfectly constructed about it, an observation I understand may be difficult to make while we hop from life distraction to life distraction. Perhaps this is why Christ warned against such worldly pursuits.

The squabble once again is presenting itself not merely as a disagreement between two powerful figures, but as a ready-made interpretive frame—illustrated through the online reactions to what the algorithm is feeding each camp—that demands immediate allegiance. One can learn a lot from observing the embarrassing corners such well-meaning people run to, corners that just yesterday may have been absolute anathema based on other things we know about our chosen heroes.

We study and understand the contradictions and heresies in modern Catholic thought, but we don’t like Trump, so we Stand with Leo!

We study and understand the contradictions and abominations coming out of the executive branch, but we’re Protestant and think Catholics are idol worshippers so we Stand with Trump!

There are one or two more camps than that, but I simplify to spotlight the absurdity.

The Illusion of Participation

What we are witnessing and going bananas over online is not organic conflict. This is a binary trap, carefully staged and rapidly deployed, conditioning the observer to react rather than reflect, to choose rather than discern, and most sadly, punish instead of pray.

This is a psyop, my friends. And we know this because of the fact that we are even being fed it. It is the Revelation of the Method that we somehow realize this after the fact every single time….

And yet fall for the next one every single time.

Minneapolis, the ‘Revelation of the Method’, and a Potentially Good Psyop

Psyops to Reality: How the Sacraments Break the Spell

When such spectacles emerge with this level of symmetry, the thoughtful observer should hesitate, because what is being offered by the same media all of us know is anti-Christic is never—not ever—the full picture. What is being offered is a Hobson’s Choice, a false dilemma masquerading as a real, organic conflict about which we’re absolutely obligated to have an opinion, where one may choose freely—so long as the choice remains within the carefully curated tribes presented by the algorithm. This is how the modern mind has been trained, slowly and insidiously, to accept the unseen limitations on online discussion as freedom, becoming comfortably numb to the deeper possibilities that never quite make it to the surface.

I’ll say this again for effect: this whole thing has had dogged Catholic thinkers running to defend Leo not days after questioning his legitimacy as pope.

That is brainwashing, and it is good counsel that we stop and ask God if we are under the spell.

I do that numerous times every day. Indeed, I don’t even write on most of the things I am finding about Leo. Not yet.

Nothing about this is new. If a dummy like me has been seeing and writing on it for so long, think about what else is true that none of us knows. Indeed, this is the same false dialectic that has echoed through history, including in the warnings surrounding the errors of “Russia” spoken of at Fatima in 1917, which were never merely geopolitical or exclusively Catholic, but metaphysical—errors that rely on the manipulation of oppositions to produce a desired synthesis in the public’s mind. This is called the Hegelian Dialectic, another societal concept I have explored at length.

Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis.

Problem-Reaction-Solution.

When one stops screaming just to get likes and loves on a post and instead juxtaposes these patterns with the modern media environment, the resemblance becomes difficult to ignore. It reveals an operating system, a monster, that thrives on squabbles while laughing at us because we don’t recognize that the outcome is being directed against us the whole time.

The Hegelian Dialectic does not require conscious cooperation from us. It functions through reaction, through momentum, through the predictable habits of human nature we’ve been feeding them online for three decades, drawing both sides into a process that races out of our control. Thesis meets antithesis—problem meets reaction—not to resolve truth and to actually get anywhere, but to generate a predetermined synthesis—the predetermined solution—and that synthesis often arrives cloaked in language that appears benevolent, progressive, and even “Christian” or “Catholic,” while being impregnated with something pernicious and monstrous.

I never really wrote on Charlie Kirk for this very reason. As emotional as this Trump-Leo thing is this week, that was even worse. There is no way this teaching would have gotten through, even though I had been writing about the binary trap for over two years at that point.

It’s all about spectacle, no matter where the truth lies. It’s all about spectacle, to keep us chained in the cave arguing about the reality in fake shadows on the wall.

When Pope Pius X Saw the Future: PASCENDI and the Modern Psyop

The Mind Under Siege

When one examines the roles played by figures like Trump and Leo, who are likely both controlled by the same strings, it becomes clear that their opposition, whether intentional or not, sustains the very system that thrives on their tension. Trump, generating reaction and polarization with terrifying consistency, draws the political imagination into a constant state of agitation, while Leo, operating within the more shepherdly sphere, does the same, albeit on a much more “Catholic” scale. Together, they form a kind of gravitational field, pulling the cave-dwellers into an insidious orbit, careening from one fatal rock to the next, anchoring their attention within a spectacle of shadows that feels oh-so-very-satisfying to shout in.

Clearly, this is not to say that either man is irrelevant, nor that their words and actions lack consequence. Rather, it is to recognize that the frame within which they are presented—and our reactions to that frame—may itself be the more significant factor as it shapes universal perception and, dare I say it—truth.

But it is not the truth.

It is not, my friends, the truth.

No matter how many times we see someone or something else post our exact opinion.

This is menticide, the killing of the mind. And where the mind goes, so also the soul. For when every issue is framed within a false binary, the mind gradually loses its ability to perceive what lies outside that frame—the actual truth. This is not because the truth has disappeared, but because it has been crowded out, excommunicated to the great beyond while layers of competing narratives demand and win our attention. When we choose sides so emotionally, we can miss entirely the opportunity to step back far enough to realize that we’ve been fighting for the truth inside a world that is false in the first place.

Think Jim Carrey and The Truman Show.

All of this is how Trojan horses are built.

This is how Catholicism’s evil turn to Modernism and its one-world religious sentiments begin to take shape. It is not through the open denial of truth, not through a devil with pitchfork and horns. It is through the gradual introduction of shared “values” that sound universally good, yet subtly detach themselves from the exclusive claims of Christ and his Church. Do a search for all of my work on the popes named Pius and the topic of Modernism for context.

Modernism is a murderer inside the horse, just like “he” was in the beginning, as Christ tells us. When these public squabbles intensify, and when the audience becomes deeply invested in the outcome, the conditions are set for a “reasonable” middle ground to emerge—one that promises peace, unity, and cooperation, while quietly dissolving the very distinctions that once protected the Faith.

Thus, what appears to be conflict often functions as preparation.

What are they preparing us for?

I would study the Noahide Laws and why they are actually the end for Christians beyond the facade of worldwide peace.

Final Words—Meet Me at Patmos

These final words may seem important only to Catholics, but the tenor of the times should tell non-Catholics that something is up inside the Catholic Church, which is why I have been focusing on past popes’ teachings for many months now.

When the spectacle dominates our attention, the substance remains unseen, and when the substance is never seen, God is not actually known, and the soul becomes increasingly dependent on the spectacle for its sense of engagement—for a sense that we are in fact doing our part these five minutes today while week after week and hour after hour we give ourselves over to the pursuits of the world, relegating God to the sidelines of our schedules.

Do we really believe God will bless us with truth when we don’t even spend time with him? When we relegate him to the end of the bench, only suitable to play during mop up time? I spend my days like a monk now since I’ve been retired, and I’m still hesitating on writing certain topics because I fear the wrath of God if I’m wrong.

I don’t mean to sound pompous or self-referential there, but I must do so in order to make a point, and yes, to condemn my own past where I myself was the one operating in error alongside everyone else.

When the question is reduced to Trump or Leo, to defend or condemn, to align or oppose, the more fundamental and eternity-deciding questions are removed. Questions about authority, about truth, about the continuity of Catholic teaching, about the relationship between Church and State, about the actual legality of Leo’s election (I haven’t even written on this yet)—these do not disappear, but no one even takes the time—or has the emotional energy—to see that they are there.

This is how the operation of error of 2 Thessalonians persists.

Thus, the path forward is not found in louder participation, but in quieter discernment.

It is found in a desert experience where we get away entirely from the noise.

So that the whisper of God can actually be heard.

The narrow path of which Christ himself spoke has never been the crowded one, and it has never been the one most loudly affirmed by the culture. It requires distance, patience, and a willingness to endure the discomfort of standing apart from the spectacle, which is precisely what makes it so difficult in an age that thrives on constant engagement.

And it is here, when the noise begins to fade and the urgency of reaction begins to loosen its grip, that something else becomes possible.

Not within the spectacle.

But beyond it—perhaps to a place like Patmos—where the world can finally go silent again….

…And he seduced them that dwell on the earth, for the signs, which were given him to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make the image of the beast, which had the wound by the sword, and lived. And it was given him to give life to the image of the beast, and that the image of the beast should speak; and should cause, that whosoever will not adore the image of the beast, should be slain” (Apoc XIII.11-15).