Trump’s Panopticon: Establishing Conformity through the Gaze of the State

June 17, 2025 by Miguel De La Torre

In Michel Foucault’s groundbreaking 1975 book, “Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison,” he explored how those who violated the laws of the royal sovereign were subject to torture as a form of punishment. Reform meant the goal of punishment had to evolve from…

Mad as Hell: Michel Foucault, Modern Psychiatry, and Being Diagnosed with Trump Derangement Syndrome

June 3, 2025 by Miguel De La Torre

In his first major work, “Madness and Civilization,” published in 1961, the postmodernist philosopher Michael Foucault examines the humane treatment of individuals considered insane by so-called “enlightened” clinician reformers from the 18th century, including Samuel Tuke and Philippe Pinel. Tuke was a Quaker who institutionalized…

The ‘Democracy’ that Never Was

May 20, 2025 by Miguel De La Torre

We give Donald Trump way too much credit. Since his inauguration, I have read countless editorials on how he is ending democracy. Trump is just the cough of a virus, the pus of a boil. He may be an asp on the veins of democracy….

Some Call it Treason; I Call it Saving My Soul

May 6, 2025 by Miguel De La Torre

Brazilian archbishop Hélder Pessoa Câmara once said, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.” During my younger years as an academic, before being radicalized by standing in solidarity…

Don’t Read this Essay. It is Overflowing With Banned Words

April 9, 2025 by Miguel De La Torre

Ignorance is strength! In this Orwellian era of “alternative facts” and “fake news,” the current Oceania administration seeks to normalize and legitimize newspeak. It provides federal agencies with a list of undesirable words that need to be struck from our vocabulary, lest they lead to crimethink. Ideological…

Donald Trump Is A Sodomite Presiding Over a Nation of Sodomites

April 2, 2025 by Miguel De La Torre

Donald Trump is a sodomite. So are Elon Musk and Stephen Miller. Together, they engage in this abomination before the eyes of the Lord. Are you also guilty of the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah? Are you sure? Our nation has become a country of…

Because of Bananas: Manifest Destiny for the 21st-Century

March 18, 2025 by Miguel De La Torre

I was an undocumented immigrant in the country responsible for my expatriation. While living in a rat-and-roach-infested one-room apartment in the slums of Manhattan, my family and I received individual letters from the U.S. government. Dated June 21, 1960, the letters informed us that we…

Indigenous Wine: Dislodging Eurocentric Models That Lead to ‘Latinos for Trump’

March 5, 2025 by Miguel De La Torre

The guardians of white privilege normalize and legitimize a way of thinking and being that enslaves minds while allegedly freeing bodies. If the mind can be colonized, then those who society is constructed to benefit don’t need to worry about resistance to oppression. All too…

Confessions of a Christian Zionist

February 12, 2025 by Miguel De La Torre

Last month, I attended an international conference in Jordan, next to the site where Jesús was supposedly baptized by Juan el Baptista. The title of my presentation was “Confessions of a Former Christian Zionist.” I argued Christian Zionism is a manifestation of European white supremacy,…

My Pronouns

February 5, 2025 by Miguel De La Torre

All my life I have been referred to as “he, him, and his.” Such a designation is apropos being that I identify as a heterosexual male. My gender and orientation as provided me with a privilege where thinking about my identity and what to call…