What Comes From the Failure to Confront Insanity

Trump’s religious zealotry advocating war crimes is the inevitable result

Donald Trump’s Tuesday morning apocalyptic threat, amounting to a vow to commit genocide, bore the whiff of both insanity and desperation. As Amnesty International put it: “The US President’s threat of extermination and irreparable destruction brazenly shreds core rules of international humanitarian law, with potentially catastrophic consequences for over 90 million people.” (Emphasis added.) Trump’s belated construction of some muddled tale of a diplomatic breakthrough should in no way diminish the illegality of his genocidal threats, the political horror it represented, or the frightful intrusion of religious zealotry into our politics.

(Photo courtesy of The White House)

It is no small matter that Trump has adopted the rhetoric of religious apocalypse — something one might associate with a fundamentalist Islamic state — which once was the lone domain of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who claims the war has been conducted on behalf of Jesus. With no hint of self-awareness, Hegseth recently declared, “We’re fighting religious fanatics who seek a nuclear capability in order for some religious Armageddon. But from my perspective, I mean, obviously I’m a man of faith who encourages our troops to lean into their faith, rely on God.”

While Hegseth has been written off as a crank and imbecile (albeit one who once tainted our uniformed military ranks), this brand of religious fervor becomes deadly serious when uttered by the commander-in-chief, who possesses access to nuclear weapons. And since Easter, when he delivered the holy message of: “Time is running out — 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!”, Trump has continually resorted to violent religious rhetoric to justify mass murder, mimicking the tone of theologically deranged terrorists.

On Tuesday, Pope Leo wrote: “Today as we all know there was this threat against all the people of Iran. This is truly unacceptable.” Archbishop Paul S. Coakley echoed: “The threat of destroying a whole civilization and the intentional targeting of civilian infrastructure cannot be morally justified.” Both condemned Trump’s religious justification for monstrous threats. While they must protect the sanctity of the Church, we must rescue our secular government.

How, then, did we reach the mortifying intersection of White Christian Nationalism (which rejects separation of church and state, casting the United States as a Christian nation), Trump’s personal pathological narcissism, and fascist warmongering (which repudiates democracy and rule of law at home and international law around the globe)? Multiple failures of our civil society and political system played a part.

This is what comes from a cadre of white, Christian evangelical leaders who have adopted nationalism rather than faith as their touchstone. MAGA leaders in collars and robes have treated Trump as a messiah figure, scorned the separation of church and state, and adopted the defense of Western civilization as a mantra and justification for cruel and exclusionary policies.

As PBS reported, Trump’s base includes white, Christian evangelists who “have been influenced by their own version of Armageddon and the end of the world…Some evangelicals espouse prophecies in which warfare involving Israel is key to bringing about the return of Jesus.” A cadre of Christian Zionists cheered the onset of war, which they see as an opportunity to advance their theology, fulfilling their prophetic vision of a triumphant Israel, a prelude to Armageddon. They can believe what they want; they should not be allowed to capture government and wield its power for their fringe sectarian purposes.

Too many political leaders (both secular and followers of other faiths) allowed themselves to be cowed when MAGA cultists whined that they were victims of anti-religious bias. Power-hungry political leaders masquerading as religious adherents received far too much leeway to intrude into government policy, procedures, and personnel. It is long past the time to take this part of the MAGA movement head-on as antithetical to the Constitution and American pluralism.

This is what comes from legacy media ignoring Trump’s obvious mental and physical decline. They have studiously refused to recognize his mental unwellness, preferring to label it part of his “personality.” Without any factual basis or medical foundation, Jake Tapper declared on C-SPAN, “I think some of the questions about President Trump’s behavior have more to do with personality than with cognitive decline.”

In clinging to journalistic ground rules inappropriate to this president, the media have habituated the public to utterly abnormal conduct. Margaret Sullivan, former public editor for the New York Times, reaffirmed the problem: “The press, because of its own conventions and time-honored practices, normalizes him, and thus fails to get across the extreme nature of this president’s behavior. Ten years of sane washing have had their effect. He remains in power, reelected, undeterred.” And, ultimately, issuing threats to commit genocide.

This is what comes from the bastardization of outlets like the Washington Post and CBS News. They have been turned into cheering sections for Trump, avoiding unflinching scrutiny and running interference (e.g., zapping a 60 Minutes investigation of CECOT) for his authoritarian, cruel, and unhinged conduct. They and other legacy outlets continue to yuck it up with Trump at self-serving celebrations of themselves.

This is what comes from an entire political party abdicating its constitutional functions — from oversight to power of the purse to the power to declare war. After years of pretending not to hear Trump’s rants or excusing them as “Trump being Trump,” cowardly Republicans paved the way for Trump to plunge us into war and issue threats of genocide. Republican senators voting to confirm entirely unfit Cabinet secretaries and then refusing to remove them when they violated the law (Signalgate) and broke international law (extrajudicial killings) have played a critical role in democratic destruction. They must be replaced en masse for failure to do their jobs.

This is what comes from the highest ranks of the military agreeing to conduct murder on the high seas. In violation of U.S. and international law, they broke new ground in the Caribbean Sea, even making excuses for killing shipwreck survivors. Trump no doubt concluded that he had cowed military brass to such a degree that they would comply with any order, even one that amounted to genocide.

This is what comes from a Supreme Court that has treated Trump as a king. Absolving him of criminal liability and indulging ever-expanding executive power while scolding lower court judges who have attempted to rein him in have helped create a monster, one who now threatens them and the rest of our constitutional system.

It is not hard to see how we got to where we are. The temptation now will be to rationalize this brush with disaster, even for Republicans to cheer Trump’s “negotiating prowess” or “restraint.” That would be a grotesque error. Dodging one calamity but ignoring the underlying pathology and serial failures that brought us to this point will ensure we have other such incidents.

We must not forget that Trump’s threats in and of themselves are war crimes, grounds for impeachment, and a flashing siren that all the enablers, rationalizers, and opportunists who have refused to blow the whistle on a deranged president need to snap out of it. Trump is a threat not “only” to democracy, but to our national security and survival, and the peace and stability of the planet.

It is time to constrain and ultimately remove him before we destroy an entire civilization — our own.