See Spot Thrum

Santa Claus, it twinkingly appears, made an early visit to Mar-a-Lago, beachfront home to our once and future president.

I’m not suggesting Old St. Nick gifted Little Donny the presidency a second time. Trump has another snow-mained oldster to thank for his second term: Joe Biden. Had Biden not been so confident in his ability to shuffle, drift, and mumble his way to re-election, all with the greasing of a compliant media, Kamala Harris may have had a large runway from which to gain traction and pose challenge. Rather, she burned a billion on celebrity endorsements, like Honda doing a Christmas promotion with Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton.

So no merry magic for MAGA on Election Day. And certainly no elves chasing ballots in Bucks County, Pa.

The gift to which I refer is actually darker than all the red-tinted imaginings of fascism the left is so keen on. It’s so grimdark it actually seems anodyne. Just two weeks after the election, a robotic sentry was spotted prowling the grounds of Trump’s bustling club. But this wasn’t just any cybernetic sentinel — it had a canid exoskeleton. It was a mechanic guard dog. More disconcerting, it has been bestowed the cutesy name “Spot,” by its ungodly fashioners at Boston Dynamics. Bleaker still, in raw, unmistakable print, the instruction “Do Not Pet” is stamped on the mech-quadruped’s legs.

And what, we organic creature admirers may ask, would happen if a hapless child were to pet its haunches? Should the curious tyke be battered and mauled by Spot’s hydraulic appendages? Be toppled under its titanium hide? Or more gruesome, have his or her biometric identifiers scanned then stored offsite, sold to the highest online drop-ship bidder to be served Temu digital ads for life?

The tech wizzes who dreamt up the need for Skynet Scruffy must have been following the Oppenheimer dictum: “When you see something that is technically sweet, you do it.” But why morph man’s best friend into a glorified security camera? Spot is reportedly unarmed, so he isn’t packing any spring-loaded Javelin missiles in hidden fibula compartments, ready to deploy like a Hasbro Beast Wars figure. Nor does its attenuated neck house anthophila, so when, in the course of chase, the pursuing cyber hound can shoot bees at any escaping trespasser.

My expertise on reconnaissance is scant — unless playing the icy Surface level on GoldenEye 007 over a hundred times counts — but a terra-firma-tethered scout on four legs doesn’t appear like the most useful or cost-effective means of securing a president’s residence. Can’t any tween walk into Costo and drop $60 on a flyable drone that can pan-and-scan large areas, rendering an isometric view? And surely our flush defense industry has produced more than enough aerial UAVs with infrared surveillance. So why the metallic mutt?

Donald Trump has more than one cause to fear for his life. He escaped two assassination attempts during his comeback campaign — one nearly popping his melon into a mélange of red and dyed blonde. Prominent columnists and cable-news sock puppets endlessly blather that he’s führer verkörpern, busily drilling jackbooted-and-arm-banded D.O.J. thugs to detain citizens who declined voting for him. Sure, Trump won re-election, warding off both the feds and Big Apple D.A. whose carceral sights were trained on him. But too many unstable femcels, bolshie bros, and androgynous wokesters stalk the fetid online swamp of Bluesky, truly believing the MAGA Reich is taking form before their terminally online eyes.

Isn’t Trump right to be cautious? Shouldn’t the Secret Service harden its protective barrier? Will Barron Trump take krav maga classes?

Prudence dictates additional measures to protect the Trump family, with a bloused-out security cordon to serve as a deterrent to any itching subversives. But the remote-control paw patrol? What difference can such a sterile non-creature really make? Thomas Matthew Crooks was spotted by rally-goers minutes before he opened fire on the nattering Trump. S.S. agents failed to promptly respond before the fateful A.R. ear-pierce.

That is to say, iLassie may be able to alert authorities if Trump tumbles down a well searching through some brush for his Titleist, but it’s not about to don a cape and nab an agitant with deadly intentions. Boston Dynamics’s canine creation is a vanity project, a preview of our dystopian future, where flesh and blood is traded for metal and oil. Spot is a grotesque invention, a parodic puppy, a hardware golem, a technical abomination, an affront to living, breathing affection.

It deserves the Old Yeller treatment. If Trump hasn’t been too naughty this year pummeling the first black female presidential nominee, maybe Santa will stuff some C4 in his stocking so the scourge of the wired whelp can be blown into tinsel.

Here’s wishing a very unmerry Christmas for The Machine!