In Dana Gwin’s March 6, 2025 letter to the editor, captioned “Defending Trump, Musk, and DOGE,” he calls out my name and tries to point out that the Dulcolax treatment I had recommended to Herr Clint Guenther in a previous letter to the editor of mine was not only ludicrous, but also Marxist. To refresh the reader, my recommendation to Guenther came after he, just as Gwin, submitted a Trumpian bespeckled letter to the editor. Given the new scientific evidence linking the gut to the brain, I extrapolated that if Dulcolax could cure constipation in the gut, perhaps its benefits might likewise extend to Guenther’s mental condition. In this letter I’m extending my Dulcolax recommendation to Gwin as well. Incidentally, this isn’t Marxist. A well-known historical fact is that Marx sat on his butt so long in the British Museum writing Das Kapital (30 years), that he developed a very severe case of hemorrhoids. I think Gwin is thus confounded in saying that Dulcolax was a Maxist idea. It might have been had I medically unsoundly recommended Preparation H.
Why the extension of my recommendation? Gwin’s letter is a wide column extending the entire length of the newspaper. It begins with a first sentence consisting of 15 words. In an Olympian feat of fecal impaction, even for a Republican or their beloved president, Gwin manages to pack 5 to 6 errors, non-facts, distortions, and/or lies into that one opening sentence alone. One need read no further than the first sentence, to justify Dulcolax. A casual reader might say, “Oh, but I can Google and find just what Gwin says in his first sentence all over the internet.” Yes, you can, but that only attests to the way in which errors, non-facts, distortions, and/or lies can metastasize throughout the internet and social media. Gwin’s particular non-factual distortion seemed to have originated with X, the Elon Musk cesspool where facts go to die; from there was then nourished by comedian Joe Rogan, who confesses to his own mental health issues; to Quora, where often very stupid questions or statements get even stupider replies and answers, and also the Washington Times, a paper with an extreme right conservative editorial bias which unfortunately the Washington Post is now striving to emulate.
Alas for Gwin, the newspaper discount coupons for Dulcolax may have expired by now, and a double alas is that unfortunately it may be distributed to the U.S. via a pharmaceutical company in Quebec, Canada. Thus, given Trump’s repeated misconceptions about tariffs, Dulcolax may also have a 25% price hike. Then again, Trump might change his mind about Canadian tariffs, but then change his mind back, or maybe change his changed mind back again. Rather than seeking to impute serious mental disorders to liberals (which Pew Research Center did not do), Gwin might profit better by reflecting on the apparently deteriorating mental and emotional state of his beloved Comrade Trump.
Beverly E. Johnson
