Do Not Feed The Animal

By Hans Casteels, advising Canadians to NOT bring fruit. Do not carry firearms. And under no circumstances feed Trump.

Trump. Condemned for what he said at 7:12 a.m. Trump. Condemned for what he failed to say at 7:43 a.m. Trump. Denounced for tone. Trump. Denounced for silence. Next headline. Next panel. Next urgent push notification vibrating on your nightstand like democracy itself has indigestion. And yes, most of it is deserved. He provokes, he preens, he detonates language like it is party confetti. But at some point you start to wonder whether we are trapped in a 24 hour performance review of a man who measures success in column inches and decibels. He is relentless, absolutely. That is not a bug. It is the operating system. The outrage, the rebuttals, the endless quoting of his most deranged phrasing, all of it feeds the one organ that never seems to require medical clearance: the ego. You almost expect to see warning signs posted at the border, right next to the agricultural restrictions and the customs declarations. Welcome to the United States. Do not bring fruit. Do not carry firearms. And under no circumstances feed Trump.

Let me begin by reassuring everyone that I have not joined a cult, purchased a red hat, or begun referring to billionaires as “relatable.” Relax. I remain entirely unimpressed. The man is a walking case study in ego inflation. He treats geopolitics the way a toddler treats a drum kit. Yes, he is reckless. Yes, he is self-obsessed. Yes, he seems to believe that impulse control is a European conspiracy. None of that has changed.

What has changed, at least for me, is the creeping suspicion that the relentless, round-the-clock, foam-flecked denunciation might be doing precisely nothing useful. Possibly worse than nothing.

There is a peculiar dynamic in modern politics. Outrage is oxygen. Attention is currency. And some people are powered entirely by both. If someone thrives on being quoted, replayed, dissected, mocked, fact checked, memeified, and turned into a late-night punchline, then perhaps the constant repetition is not the punishment we imagine it to be. Perhaps it is a marketing strategy we are generously underwriting.

There is something almost athletic about the cycle. He says something outrageous before breakfast. By lunch, it is trending. By dinne,r it is dissected by panels of Very Serious People leaning forward with knitted brows. By midnight, it has been converted into eight thousand think pieces, seventeen podcasts, and at least one interpretive dance on social media. The next morning, repeat. It is the political equivalent of feeding a raccoon and then acting surprised when it brings its extended family.

I understand the impulse. The statements are often absurd, occasionally dangerous, and frequently detached from basic reality. Ignoring nonsense can feel irresponsible. Silence can look like complicity. Journalists have a duty to report. Citizens have a duty to respond. I am not arguing for collective amnesia.

But I am arguing that volume is not strategy. There is a fatigue that sets in when every day is DEFCON 1. When every utterance is framed as the collapse of civilization. When every tweet is treated as if Mount Sinai has been replaced by a smartphone. Eventually, people stop listening. Not because they agree. Not because they approve. But because they are tired. And tired people do not engage thoughtfully. They scroll.

We have, in some corners, created a permanent outrage machine. It hums day and night. It requires constant fuel. It has no off switch. It reduces complex political realities into a binary carnival. You are either horrified enough or you are complicit. There is no middle ground, no strategic pause, no recalibration.

Meanwhile, the central character in this drama receives exactly what he has always craved: attention. Coverage. Amplification. He does not need applause. He needs an audience.

It is worth remembering that before he was a politician, he was a brand. A walking logo. A man who understood that media oxygen is the most valuable commodity in public life. In that sense, the endless cycle of reaction may not be resistance. It may be collaboration.

There is also the subtle psychological cost. When public discourse is dominated by one figure, even negatively, everything else fades into background noise. Policy debates shrink. Nuance evaporates. Competence becomes boring. Governance becomes theatre. And the rest of us become exhausted spectators.

As a Belgian Canadian who has watched political absurdity on multiple continents, I can assure you this is not uniquely American. Europe has its own parade of egos. Canada occasionally flirts with its own theatrical nonsense. But there is something particularly relentless about this one man’s gravitational pull. It distorts the conversation around him.

If every headline includes his name, he remains the sun. If every panel discussion centers on decoding his latest pronouncement, he remains the axis. If every critic cannot resist quoting him verbatim to demonstrate how unhinged he sounds, then his words travel further than they otherwise might have. We tell ourselves that we are exposing him. Sometimes we are simply broadcasting him.

There is also the question of persuasion. Who, exactly, is being convinced by the daily avalanche of denunciation? His most devoted supporters are not swayed by eye rolling monologues. They often interpret them as proof that he is fighting the establishment. His harshest critics do not require further convincing. The middle, the weary, the politically disengaged are more likely to tune out than to convert. Relentless condemnation can become background noise. And background noise rarely changes minds.

This is not a call for passivity. It is a call for strategy. Perhaps instead of amplifying every provocation, we focus on outcomes. On policy consequences. On measurable impacts. On the boring details of governance that actually shape lives. Instead of reacting to every rhetorical grenade, we could document the structural effects. Follow the money. Track the decisions. Analyze the results. That is far less emotionally satisfying. It lacks the instant hit of outrage. It does not trend as easily. It requires patience and discipline. But it might be more effective.

There is also the possibility of selective silence. Not censorship. Not denial. But a refusal to treat every absurd statement as a five alarm fire. Some remarks deserve coverage. Others deserve the dignified obscurity of being ignored.

In a media ecosystem driven by clicks, that suggestion sounds quaint. Outrage pays. Calm analysis does not. But if the objective is to reduce the influence of someone who thrives on spectacle, then perhaps the first step is to reduce the spectacle.

There is another layer. Constant moral panic distorts our own emotional equilibrium. Living in a perpetual state of alarm is corrosive. It narrows perspective. It encourages us to see politics as apocalypse rather than as process. Democracies are resilient precisely because they are messy, incremental, and often frustratingly slow. When we frame every controversy as the end of the world, we cheapen the language we will need if something truly catastrophic occurs.

It is also worth acknowledging that relentless personal mockery, while cathartic, can backfire. When criticism slides from substantive to performative, from evidence-based to theatrical, it becomes easier to dismiss. There is a difference between holding someone accountable and turning them into a daily punchline. The latter can feel good. The former can actually matter.

I do not pretend that ignoring him entirely would cause him to evaporate like mist. Politics does not work that way. But I am increasingly convinced that a strategic reduction in amplification might have more impact than a thousand indignant retweets.

The paradox is uncomfortable. We fear that if we stop shouting, he wins. But what if shouting is part of the ecosystem that sustains him? What if the most subversive act in an attention economy is restraint?

Imagine a week where headlines prioritize infrastructure, healthcare, trade, climate, and education, instead of parsing the latest rhetorical detonation. Imagine panels discussing policy substance rather than personality. Imagine satire aimed not at recycling his words but at exposing systemic weaknesses that predate him and will outlast him. That would be less entertaining. It would also be more grown-up.

I am not naive. He will continue to speak. Media outlets will continue to cover him. Critics will continue to react. The cycle will hum on. But as citizens, we do have choices about where we direct our energy. Outrage is easy. Strategy is harder.

Yes, he is a menace. Yes, he is narcissistic. Yes, he says things that make you wonder whether the script was written by an AI trained exclusively on late-night infomercials. None of that requires daily amplification to remain true.

Perhaps the more effective response is disciplined focus. Document what matters. Expose what harms. Ignore what merely provokes. Treat spectacle as background noise and substance as the main event.

In an age where attention is the ultimate prize, the most radical act might be to withhold it.

Trump. Condemned for what he said at 7:12 a.m. Trump. Condemned for what he failed to say at 7:43 a.m. Trump. Denounced for tone. Trump. Denounced for silence. Next headline. Next panel. Next urgent push notification vibrating on your nightstand like democracy itself has indigestion. And yes, most of it is deserved. He provokes, he preens, he detonates language like it is party confetti. But at some point, you start to wonder whether we are trapped in a 24-hour performance review of a man who measures success in column inches and decibels. He is relentless, absolutely. That is not a bug. It is the operating system. The outrage, the rebuttals, the endless quoting of his most deranged phrasing, all of it feeds the one organ that never seems to require medical clearance: the ego. You almost expect to see warning signs posted at the border, right next to the agricultural restrictions and the customs declarations. Welcome to the United States. Do not bring fruit. Do not carry firearms. And under no circumstances feed Trump.

If I May: A request for your consideration.

I don’t charge for this Substack and I never will. If you judge that this writing has any value, the only place it can be converted into money is here: a voluntary GoFundMe to help purchase new NICU bassinets for William Osler Health Centre. This exists because Ontario’s healthcare funding model has been allowed to decay to the point where essential neonatal life-support equipment can be twenty years old and still in service. That is not resilience. That is neglect with a communications strategy. When governments chronically underfund hospitals, responsibility quietly migrates downward until the public is left compensating for structural failure. Premature and critically ill newborns do not benefit from ideology, talking points, or budgetary patience. They benefit from functioning, modern equipment. This is you and me stepping in because the system did not.

https://gofund.me/a0fc0777e