The venerable Nick Welsh, Executive Editor of the uber-liberal Santa Barbara Independent—Santa Barbara’s dominant alternative weekly that shapes much of the city’s progressive discourse—recently penned a piece in his long-running column, The Angry Poodle. Even by his standards, this one veers into deranged, unintelligible psychobabble. Angry Poodle is a cute name, except it unfairly defames poodles, a breed renowned for its high intelligence and trainability.
In the February 25, 2026, column titled “Louis XIV, Mussolini, a Bottle of Castor Oil, and Trump,” Welsh deploys his trademark venom. He describes Trump’s speeches as “an act of auto-erotic asphyxiation”—with the asphyxiation tormenting listeners like himself, while the gratification belongs solely to Trump. I kid you not; he admits the “asphyxiation” part is a problem for him. First, he declares he’d root for cancer if Trump opposed it: “If he were to come up with a cure for cancer, I’m sure I’d find myself rooting for cancer.” Then, scraping together whatever functioning brain cells remain, he casts Trump as the second coming of Benito Mussolini (famous for force-feeding castor oil to humiliate foes) and King Louis XIV (“L’etat, c’est moi”).
Like a nervous tic, he fulminates about Trump’s “fascist” tendencies and the impending collapse of democracy—never mind that it’s Democrats who push to pack the Supreme Court and admit Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico as states to lock in perpetual power. Arizona’s new Democrat Senator, Ruben Gallego, recently issued a thinly veiled threat against corporations bold enough to cooperate with this Administration: Once Democrats regain control, they’ll break up those companies and ensure their CEOs get fired. The authoritarians are always the guys Nick Welsh likes to cozy up to.
But back to Welsh’s auto-erotic fantasies. If you’ve endured his columns over the years (yeah, I know that might qualify me as a masochist), this isn’t surprising. His hatred for Trump erupts in Vesuvian volcanic outbursts, leading one to conclude this obsession signals a person with extreme mental health issues. I genuinely worry about his well-being when he roots for cancer just because Trump opposes it.
Normally, I’d dismiss these bizarre musings as a failed stab at humor. But closer scrutiny suggests his Trump fixation has tipped him over the edge. This isn’t a rational person with normal thoughts and emotions. Someone close to him might consider staging an intervention so he can seek help. It’s not healthy to hate someone so intensely that you fantasize about asphyxiation.
Over the Rim and Into the Chasm
Welsh’s extremism isn’t limited to national politics; it bleeds heavily into local battles, where his influence as the Independent’s top editor amplifies radical anti-oil stances. In his coverage of Sable Offshore—the Texas-based company attempting to restart long-dormant offshore oil production and the corroded pipeline tied to the 2015 Refugio spill—he frames every move as an existential threat. He has described Sable’s efforts as a “big power play” by “very smart guys who seem intent on stepping on as many toes as possible,” threatening to build massive offshore facilities in federal waters to dodge state regulations. In one piece, he warns of Sable’s “threatened big power play” and questions “at what cost?”—portraying any revival as reckless and environmentally catastrophic, often tying it directly to Trump’s pro-drilling agenda as a federal override of California’s safeguards.
His scoops and deep dives have fueled local opposition, positioning him as the go-to voice rallying environmentalists against what he sees as a revival of dangerous, outdated fossil fuel extraction in Santa Barbara waters.
Since we’re discussing behavior bordering on intermittent explosive disorder—uncontrolled rage and aggression toward others—I’d be remiss not to mention the self-proclaimed political pundit and journalist in our town, Jerry Roberts. Through his platform Santa Barbara Newsmakers (on Substack, YouTube, and beyond), Roberts hosts candidate debates, election analyses, and interviews that shape local political narratives, often with a strong anti-Trump, left-leaning slant in a city where conservative voices struggle for airtime. He frequently features Welsh for in-depth discussions, amplifying these views.
As someone who occasionally tunes into his very biased, skewed rants about all things Trump, I found his recent email exchange with me even more unhinged than usual. I politely pointed out that he often cites only 14% of detained illegal immigrants charged or convicted of violent crimes—conveniently omitting non-violent offenses like drug trafficking, child pornography, burglary, fraud, DUI, embezzlement, human smuggling, and more. The real percentage skyrockets when including all crimes.
His verbatim response? “As usual Lou, you spend your days spouting horseshit,” followed by his calling me a “sick man.” This was his reply to what one would have to consider a mild, innocuous request for clarification.
If there’s a more classic case of projecting one’s own emotions and insecurities onto someone else, I don’t know what it would be.
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