A culture and society researcher is warning that America in the age of Trump is seeing its “final act” — but says Trump is just the messenger.

“What MAGA voters received,” writes John Mac Ghlionn in an opinion piece at The Hill, “wasn’t renewal, but a grim revelation. The failure was never just Trump. He was the messenger. The problem is that America no longer has the political, economic or cultural capacity to deliver restoration at all.”

Mac Ghlionn says that America under Trump’s second term is worse than under his first: “Not because Trump changed, but because the country has weakened further — and no amount of bravado can reverse structural decline.”

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Warning of what he calls “managed decline,” Mac Ghlionn says that the pillars of American dominance — “productive labor, demographic confidence, institutional trust, and cultural gravity” — are “steadily eroding,” while its “social foundations” are “cracking.”

“Fewer young Americans are working,” he writes. “Not transitioning between jobs — simply not employed at all. Many move between credentials and gig work, lacking direction and long-term footing. Marriage rates are collapsing. Birth rates are falling below replacement. These trends are linked. When stable work is harder to find, forming relationships becomes harder, commitment harder still, and raising a family nearly impossible. With AI accelerating job insecurity rather than easing it, the trajectory only points in one direction.”

This may not be the end of America, but America “no longer defines the age.”

“Trump didn’t save America,” Mac Ghlionn observes. “He didn’t destroy it either. He revealed it. And what he revealed is a nation exhausted, indebted, aging, and divided — still powerful, still wealthy, but no longer confident in its future.”

READ MORE: Trump Says No Other President Would Take Cognitive Test He ‘Aced’ Three Times Straight

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Recent visitors to Ark Encounter, a Christian theme park that has drawn controversy over the years, are facing a new challenge. Kentucky health officials are warning of possible exposure to measles, after an unvaccinated individual reportedly visited the museum and a local hotel earlier this week.

“Measles is a highly contagious disease,” Northern Kentucky Health District Director for Health Jennifer Mooney, PhD, MPH, said in a press release, according to NBC affiliate WLWT. “Being around so many people at a place such as the Ark Encounter creates the potential for wide exposure. We want to make sure everyone who visited during that time is aware they may have been exposed to the measles, and they should monitor themselves for symptoms.”

“We also want to remind people that measles is preventable through the highly effective MMR (Measles, Mumps & Rubella) vaccine,” Dr. Mooney added. “The vaccine has been administered to millions of people over several decades and has a proven health and safety record.”

READ MORE: Trump Says No Other President Would Take Cognitive Test He ‘Aced’ Three Times Straight

WDRB reported that “Measles, a highly contagious respiratory virus, can cause serious health problems, especially in young children, according to the CDC’s website. The virus spreads through the air after someone infected coughs or sneezes. It can then linger for up to two hours after the infected person leaves.”

According to the CDC, the U.S. saw 2065 cases of measles in 2025, up from 285 in 2024 and just 59 cases in 2023.

“Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000. This was thanks to a very high percentage of people receiving the safe and effective measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. In recent years, however,” CDC reported, “U.S. national MMR coverage among kindergarteners has decreased and is now below the 95% coverage target—with much lower coverage in some communities.”

Hemant Mehta of The Friendly Atheist wrote that “Ark Encounter offers free tickets for children,” and warned of “the possibility that unvaccinated kids will pay the price because of one irresponsible person’s ignorance.”

“It’s already happened in South Carolina,” he noted, “where one particular church is now the epicenter of a measles outbreak.”

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President Donald Trump is bragging that he has taken yet another cognitive test, claiming he “aced” it, and insisting that no other president or vice president has ever been willing to take one.

“The White House Doctors have just reported that I am in ‘perfect health,’ and that I ‘aced’ (Meaning, was correct on 100% of the questions asked!), for the third straight time, my Cognitive Examination, something which no other President, or previous Vice President, was willing to take,” Trump wrote Friday morning on Truth Social.

“P.S., I strongly believe that anyone running for President, or Vice President, should be mandatorily forced to take a strong, meaningful, and proven Cognitive Examination. Our great Country cannot be run by ‘STUPID’ or INCOMPETENT PEOPLE!,” he added.

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Trump’s insistence comes just one day after The Wall Street Journal published a deep look at the president’s health alleging he is “showing signs of aging in public and private.”

“Trump’s staff have also counseled him to try to keep his eyes open during public events, fearing the optics of his appearing to fall asleep, a person familiar with the matter said,” the Journal also reported.

The president is being mocked over his Truth Social post, with some commentators on social media point out that no other president has had to take one — and that a cognitive test is not an IQ test.

“Trump posts claim that he ‘aced’ his third cognitive exam.. Forgetting that he already announced this exact claim last month…” wrote professor and investor Adam Cochran.

“Whether it’s Barack Obama being the editor of Harvard Law Review or Donald Trump narrowly passing a cognitive test used to detect dementia, there’s plenty of serious intellectual accomplishments on both sides of the aisle,” remarked NYTPitchbot, a well-known political parody account with nearly a quarter-million followers.

“Poor guy,” charged Džamila Stehlíková, a Prague-based politician and a doctor, according to Google Translate. “Trump boasts that he has ‘passed’ a cognitive test for the third time, which is actually a primitive test to rule out dementia that even a 10-year-old schoolchild can handle.”

“The need to boast about his intellect stems from Trump’s well-founded fear of intellectual failure,” she alleged, according to the translation.

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