"Donald Trump and his supporters are a threat to humanity," writes Professor Mark Beeson. "Every time you think things can’t get worse... they double-down on stupidity."
DONALD TRUMP was never an obvious choice for the American presidency. He is famously not very bright, and he’s clearly becoming less so with every week that passes. He’s also a convicted felon and completely lacking in any sense of morality or empathy. Even more importantly, perhaps, he has a childlike need for attention and fear of rejection. All of which means he lashes out when he is challenged or feels slighted.
Just how unhinged and lacking in any sense of proportion, responsibility or dignity he has become was evident in his recent social media posts (see above verified screenshot).
After threatening to ‘bomb Iran back to the stone ages’ (there was only one of them, Donald), he told the Iranian leadership to:
'... open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.'
This sort of language and the gratuitous insult to another faith would be unpleasant and inappropriate coming from the mouth of an uncouth, ill-informed racist teenager — which may be exactly what Trump and his even more odious Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, are: over-privileged, emotionally and intellectually stunted frat boys.
This has all proved too much for some former stalwarts of the MAGA movement. And so it should. Majorie Greene, formerly one of Trump’s most vocal supporters, has become one of his fiercest critics. Initially outraged by the Administration’s failure to release the Epstein files, she has now described Trump as "insane" and "not a Christian" because of his illegal war on Iran.
By contrast, Secretary of War Hegseth remains one of the most influential people in Trump’s sycophantic orbit and a self-declared Christian evangelical.
Being a Christian has done little to curb his blood lust; however, a possibility that is evident in Hegseth's assessment of the war with Iran:
"This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down."
Indeed, Hegseth claims to be praying for the use of "overwhelming violence" against Iran "in the name of Jesus".
Cheek-turning has clearly gone out of favour with America’s more fanatical Christian community, who remain enthusiastic Trump supporters.
It’s not just over-enthusiastic Christians that are keen on a bit of smiting, however. Benjamin Netanyahu, another key Trump whisperer, set a new benchmark for hypocrisy when he recently claimed that an assassinated Iranian naval commander had "blood on his hands". Netanyahu would know something about that after killing something like 70,000 people in Gaza – most of whom were civilians – not to mention reducing the survivors' homes to rubble.
The point to emphasise is that the key players in the two countries trying to destroy Iran and kill its people – "only" a couple of thousand dead so far – have absolutely no empathy, morality or even strategic nous. Not only has Iran plainly not been defeated, as we were led to believe, but the collateral damage to its neighbours and the global economy are potentially immense. Perhaps crashing stock markets will affect Trump’s thinking in ways the death of innocents plainly doesn’t.
Or perhaps not. After all, if you can buy and sell with the benefit of insider information, there’s still lots of money to be made, especially if you’re a corrupt, self-absorbed sociopath. The real victims, as ever, will be the world’s poor and blameless, as they struggle to cope with rising prices and food shortages caused by a breakdown in the supply of fertiliser and the disruption of foreign aid.
It’s hard to overstate what a threat to humanity Trump and his supporters really are. Every time you think things can’t get worse or more ill-advised, they double down on stupidity. Let’s hope someone doesn’t suggest to the most powerful man in the world that the best way to ensure that Iran’s alleged nuclear stockpile is destroyed is to drop a "tactical" nuclear weapon on it.
Q: “Why did you use such vulgar language in that Truth Social post?”
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) April 6, 2026
Trump: “Only to make my point.”pic.twitter.com/ocqP9XABVn
It’s a tactic that worked so well in Japan after all, which seems to be one piece of history Trump actually knows something about — as he demonstrated by delicately reminding Japan’s new Prime Minister about the attack on Pearl Harbour. It’s a pity she didn’t respond by saying that the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were equally surprised to have nuclear weapons dropped on their unsuspecting heads.
But no one dares to invoke the wrath of the Trump Administration. The big question is at what point do the American people – and especially the American military – say enough is enough. Things are spinning completely out of control and the Trump Administration is a danger to the people they claim to represent and to the rest of the world.
There are some signs that other countries are belatedly recognising the threat, but much more needs to be done. A useful, sobering and cost-free message could be sent by a mass boycott of the forthcoming World Cup. It would be unfortunate for the football tragics amongst us, but a small price to pay for giving President Trump a kick in the psychological goolies; to put it in language he might understand.
Mark Beeson is an adjunct professor at the University of Technology Sydney and Griffith University. He was previously Professor of International Politics at the University of Western Australia.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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