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.

How benevolent of them.

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—all which demands immediate allegiance one way or the other. 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 to them 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 or six 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. And we know this because of the mere fact that we are even being shown and fed it like we haven’t eaten in forty days. It is called the insidious Revelation of the Method, that we somehow realize all of this only after the fact every single time….

And yet fall for the next one the looks stunningly similar to it—every single time.

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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 nefariously, to gleefully accept the unseen limitations on online discussion as freedom, going comfortably numb to the deeper possibilities that never quite make the cut.

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, Church elections, and Church law. Not yet.

This brainwashing isn’t new—and we all know this. 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 binary trap 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 and apocalyptic—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 we have explored together 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 familiar 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.

Every single time.

The Hegelian Dialectic does not require conscious cooperation from us. It functions through reaction, through memetic energy, through the predictable habits of human nature we’ve been feeding them online for three decades, drawing both sides into a process that spins 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,” all while being impregnated with a beast intent on the kill.

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

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When one examines the roles played by figures like Trump and Leo—or the pixelated versions of them coming through a screen—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, continues to draw the political landscape 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 to us—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 in fact the truth.

It is not, my friends, the truth.

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

What it is 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, and we continue to fall for it, the mind gradually loses its ability to perceive what lies outside that frame—the actual truth. This is not because the truth is any less true, 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 with such investment and emotion, we can miss entirely the opportunity to step back far enough to realize that we’ve been warring 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. It is how the imposters inside Catholicism’s 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. We let that inside the gates, and we are paying the price for it now.

Do a search for all of my work on the popes named Pius and Gregory and the topic of Modernism for context.

Modernism is a murderer inside the horse, just like “he” was in the beginning, as Christ himself tells us. When these public squabbles intensify, and when the audience becomes strangely 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.

Hegelian Dialectic.

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, and because there is something up, maybe everyone should pay attention with a more historical mind. It is why I have been focusing on past popes’ teachings for many months now.

When the spectacle dominates our attention, the actual 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.

See Romans I.24. I fear and tremble when I do.

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 bigger issue we present today is reduced to Trump or Leo, to defend or condemn, to align or oppose, the more fundamental and eternity-deciding questions are removed. We forget them amidst the emotional whirlwind. Rational 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 become any less urgent, 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 answer to all of this, the truly progressive path forward, is not found in louder participation online, but in a quieter discernment that takes us away 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 show, 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 all—perhaps to a place like Patmos—where the world can finally go silent again….