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TRUMP–AND “THE TWILIGHT ZONE”

In Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 3, 2026 at 12:23 am

On May 11, 2026, for three hours, President Donald Trump posted over 50 messages on his website, Truth Social. The posts mainly consisted of:         

  • Reposting;
  • Attacking political opponents;
  • Calling for prosecution of enemies;
  • Posting AI-generated images of himself; and
  • References to foreign policy, including the war in Iran.

The posts occurred just before a scheduled trip to China and amid rising economic pressures in the United States. These, in turn, stem from Iran’s blocking the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% to 25% of the world’s oil passes, after Trump ordered a naval blockade of Iranian ports.

The Wall Street Journal reported that between 10:14 p.m. and 1:12 a.m., Trump posted 55 times, with other reports citing over 50-54 posts within that timeframe.

He posted a 400-word attack against The New York Times at 1:12 a.m. on May 12. His complaint: It had revealed that his renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool would cost more than $10 million over what he had previously said. 

Donald Trump

He also falsely claimed the Times of losing subscribers. On the contrary: On May 6, the company reported:

“The Times has added an average of 330,000 total subscribers a quarter, including print, since the start of last year” and “now has 13.1 million subscribers…after adding about 310,000 digital-only subscribers in the first quarter of the year.”

Most of his venom was aimed at Barack Obama. Trump reposted messages from his supporters, who accused the former president of sedition, wiretapping Trump Tower and creating the “Russia Hoax” to steal the 2016 Presidential election.

It’s clear that Trump—a lifelong racist—harbors jealousy of the black, still-handsome, articulate, witty and beloved former president. When Trump was being assailed in 2016 for his “grab-em-by-the-pussy” comment, he complained that no one was accusing Obama of sexual infidelities.

File:Barack Obama in 2016.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Barack Obama

For good reason: Unlike Trump—who bedded a porn “star” while married to his third wife, Melania—there has never been a hint of scandal about Obama.

In one post, Trump—who incited a deadly attack on Congress on January 6, 2021, to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 Presidential election—accused Obama of plotting a coup against him.

As always with Trump, he offered no evidence to back up his slander.

He also lied that:

  • Obama profited $120 million from Obamacare;
  • Obama wiretapped Trump Tower; 
  • Dominion voting machines changed votes in 2024; and
  • Neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris was running the previous administration.

Obama was not the only public figure Trump attacked. Others included:

  • Former presidential opponent Hillary Clinton;
  • Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, who has urged members of the military to disobey illegal orders;
  • Former FBI director and Trump critic James Comey;
  • Former independent counsel Jack Smith, who investigated Trump’s inciting the January 6 coup attempt

Trump is clearly still hung up on his 2020 re-election loss to Joe Biden, lying that Dominion voting machines “DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE. INCLUDING OVER 1 MILLION PENNSYLVANIA VOTES SWITCHED FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP TO BIDEN.”

He can’t accept that a majority of voters would prefer anyone else to him—even though his loss largely stemmed from his refusal to tackle the mushrooming COVID-19 crisis.

Trump’s tweeting rampage echoes the theme of a 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone: “One More Pallbearer.” The central character in it is millionaire Paul Radin (played by Joseph Weisman) who nurses decades-old grudges against three people.

With a few slight alterations, he could be Trump himself.

Radin invites three people to the bomb shelter that he has built in New York City. But they aren’t family or friends. He  holds deep grudges against all of them.

One is high-school teacher Mrs. Langsford, who gave him a failing grade when he was caught cheating on a test. The second is Colonel Hawthorne, who had him court-martialed when Radin endangered lives by disobeying orders. The third is Reverend Hughes, who made a public scandal out of a young woman who later committed suicide over Radin. 

Radin has equipped his shelter with sound effects and fake radio messages to convince the trio that nuclear war will occur in just moments. He offers them refuge in the shelter if they beg his forgiveness for their treatment of him. They refuse his offer, making it clear they would rather die with loved ones than survive with him. 

A TV screen playing footage of a nuclear explosion—and the accompanying sound effects—convince Radin that his fantasy is in fact real.

When he emerges from the shelter, the city is intact. But the sheer intensity of the illusion he created has led Radin to lose his mind. He sobs helplessly at the foot of a fountain outside his intact building—a victim of his own overweening pride and hatred.

And, as happens at the close of every Twilight Zone episode, Rod Serling, the series’ host and narrator, is on hand to offer his moving commentary:

“Mr. Paul Radin, a dealer in fantasy, who sits in the rubble of his own making and imagines that he’s the last man on Earth, doomed to a perdition of unutterable loneliness because a practical joke has turned into a nightmare. Mr. Paul Radin, pallbearer at a funeral that he manufactured himself in the Twilight Zone.”

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