TDS Watch: Inquirer columnist calls Trump a “mad king” and “Caligula”

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p>Not for nuthin'…. But….. when a big-city columnist needs a whole piece just to “find the words” for the president — and the words he finds are Caligula, mad king, and a wink at 1938 Germany — we are no longer in the opinion section. We are in the ward.

What was said

On Sunday, Sep 27, 2026, Pulitzer-winning Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch published “We need to find the words for Trump’s madness before things blow up.” The column reacts to President Trump’s recent U.N. speech, taxpayer-funded messaging ads, and the broader midterms fight.

Exact words from the column:

“A demagogue who hijacked American democracy, just as the nation’s founders feared would happen, is devolving into a mad king before our eyes.”

He also frames Trump as:

“21st-century Caligula”

And compares how the New York Times covered the U.N. speech to:

“1938 sanewashing of a certain German dictator’s foreign policy.”

Bunch quotes indie journalist Dan Froomkin approvingly:

“It’s not so much correction that he lacks. It’s a functional brain.”

Then he runs through three “explanations” the media supposedly won’t discuss — dementia, unrepentant narcissism, or “crazy…like a fox” — and adds that Trump “could have grounds for an insanity defense.”

Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer, Sep 27, 2026

Context (not spin)

Disagree with the U.N. speech? Argue it. Hate the taxpayer-funded ads? Take that to Congress and the GAO — CNBC, CBS, AP, and the Washington Post are already covering the legal fight over “publicity or propaganda” rules. That’s journalism.

What that is not: a Roman-emperor costume party with a side of Weimar. Calling a sitting president “Caligula,” a “mad king,” and nodding at 1938 Germany while floating an insanity defense isn’t holding power to account — it’s the rhetorical equivalent of calling every nor’easter the Fall of Rome. When every policy fight has to be dementia-or-dictator, people stop hearing the real arguments. The syndrome isn’t “criticism.” It’s the inability to criticize without checking the patient into ancient history and a psych ward in the same lede.

MOAM’s diagnosis

Severity: TERMINAL.

You can hammer the ads. You can hammer the U.N. tone. You can vote the other way in November. What you don’t get to do — not if you want anybody outside Center City to keep listening — is stack Caligula, mad king, and 1938 Germany in one column and call it the missing vocabulary of democracy. That’s not finding the right words. That’s raiding the costume shop. Down here in Marblehead we still know the difference between a tough president and a toga party. Save Caligula for Caligula. Save the rest for the actual case file.

MOAM Out.