Destroying the World to Save Himself

Here is today’s news headlined in the New York Times: “President Trump threatened to wipe out a ‘whole civilization,’ and the United States hit military targets on Iran’s main oil export hub, as Trump ramped up pressure on Tehran to fully open the Strait of Hormuz or potentially face a wave of strikes on critical infrastructure in the coming hours. Mr. Trump issued the grave warning in a post on social media on Tuesday as a new round of attacks was launched across the Middle East. The U.S. attacked Kharg Island, the export hub, Israel and Iran launched fresh attacks and Israel’s military warned Iranians to avoid traveling by train. The increasingly incendiary threats and the intense fighting reinforced the fragile state of diplomacy, with no public signs of a diplomatic breakthrough to end the war.” I am reminded of the fear that gripped the world during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 when the threat of nuclear war and world destruction seemed imminent. On Easter Sunday a president of the United States and reputed world leader wrote, “Open the fucking Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell. JUST WATCH.” The obscenity laced threat can be spoken by low-life’s and belongs in the garbage strewn gutters and dark corners and not in the delicate and crucial public forums of diplomacy and negotiation. What is obscene is not only the language but the intent. And of course, the source the obscenity laced discourse. But I recognize in his threat a textbook example of the defensive psychological disorder called projection in which an individual unconsciously assigns their own unacceptable thoughts, feelings or impulses to avoid anxiety or loss of self-esteem. I am wondering, who exactly is the crazy bastard here? Today Trump threatened to wipe out a whole civilization and prophesized that it will never recover. He gthreatened, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again . . .” Most of what he threatens is defined as war crimes. But his language suggests that he is already destroying civilization. 

            Trump’s threats remind me of the words and events in the Hebrew bible. In Genesis God destroys humankind f with the flood for their depravity and immoral acts. In Exodus God threatens to destroy the freed slaves who have worshipped the golden calf. “I see that this is stiffnecked people. Now let Me be, that My anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them . . .” In Numbers God threatens to destroy the people after the report by the spies deters the Israelites from entering the Land. And in Deuteronomy, Moses warns the people that their disobedience will lead to their destruction. By the flood God succeeds in wiping out civilization; in the latter instances Moses is able to convince God not to destroy the people, and I hold in my mind an image of God sulking back to his room and feeling that his compliance is emblem of his ultimate weakness. God accuses the Israelites of being stiffnecked that I take to be a synonym for the child’s expletive, doody-head!

            Trump is not God though he does seem in his threats to mimic God’s words and in his actions to presume God’s power. But as God in the Hebrew Bible is often petulant and petty demanding absolute submissiveness and strict obedience, threatening destruction for disobedience; so is Trump petulant and petty threatening destruction for disobedience that is only a synonym for disloyalty. I think of the Red Queen who orders “Off with their heads!” Unlike God, however, Trump actually has the power to destroy civilization to protect his megalomaniacal belief in his absolute power and indestructability. What I am saying is that Trump’s narcissism and megalomania threatens not just the Iranian civilization but that of all humanity. To save himself Trump would sacrifice the world. Trump’s narcissism is not a tragic flaw: it is a serious psychological condition that defines every act from his very limited and self-serving perspective in which he can define himself as the greatest President in American history with permission to do whatever he wants with impunity. He is mad and maddening; he is a danger to all civilization.