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Fastened To A Dying Animal

11 1
05.02.2026

A fading empire, like a wounded narcissist facing decline, is a dangerous animal.

“…fastened to a dying animal

It knows not what it is; and gather me

Into the artifice of eternity.”

The things of the world that a narcissist cannot exploit, dominate, and control a narcissist will attempt to destroy. Facing collapse from inner hollowness – a narcissist is devoid of a sustaining core — he has merely a brittle facade insofar as facing the world — thus the narcissist grows increasingly desperate for praise (very bad people are denying me my Nobel Peace Prize) and he is prone to lash out in spasms of malignant rage (even to the point of bodies on city streets and reckless acts of military aggression abroad).

Frida Kahlo The broken column

That is no country for old men. The young

In one another’s arms, birds in the trees,

—Those dying generations—at their song,

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long

Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of unageing intellect. – Sailing to Byzantium, William Butler Yeats

Trump is an emblem — not the cause: The US has been in a state of wounded narcissism since at least the Vietnam war era. Those damn hippie commie pinkos (like the transgender weirdos of the present, invading hordes of criminal border crossers, and limp-of-wrist, protein-starved soy boys) so demoralized US soldiers in Vietnam that they could not maintain a proper kill count as they faced brigades of spitting peaceniks at home.

MAGA is a narcissistic wound in collective form. Fastened to a dying animal – a deranged, manic mindscape of nebulous grievance and displaced rage – will become ever more deranged and dangerous. Trump exiting the scene will not alter the trajectory of imperial deterioration.

We are confronted with a wounded beast in the form of a hydra. Yes, it will be a relief to rid from our sight the head with the risible hair weave and the malignant mouth. But to kill a hydra one must strike at the heart of the beast i.e., the capitalist dictatorship of money i.e., a heart that beats within the shared body of the Democratic Party heads of the beast.

Thus we have witnessed the reason Democrats have revealed themselves to be feckless against the rise of MAGA hyper-authoritarian excesses. A party unwilling to call out Israel’s perpetual criminality will prove useless against state sanctioned murder at home.

So we are on our own in this struggle. We must collectively strike at the heart of the beasts. Refuse to feed the beast by general, widespread strikes – not day tripper marches.

How do we strike at the heart of the hydra?

Side with, and attempt to protect the powerless, from Gaza to the urban streets of the US, the latter of which Trump, in his narcissistic pique, has flooded with ICE brownshirts. I realize, people are dying in the attempt. In their........

© CounterPunch