The President from Hell (and High Water)

I’m not going to mention him. Oops! In a way, I already did, didn’t I? Rats!

But can you really blame me? I mean, tell me the truth: Did you make it through yesterday without at least thinking about him? If you did, all I can say is that I’m genuinely impressed.

On the day I first began considering writing this piece, the New York Times reported that the Trump crew had just “sold” 60,000 mostly one-ton bombs to Israel. Yes, you read that right: 60,000 weapons, most of which can leave a crater up to 50 feet deep. And assume that, sooner or later, they’re likely to be used in southern Lebanon and particularly in Gaza, a 25-mile strip of land. Drop thousands of those weapons there, and that strip is likely to end up 50 feet deep from end to end.

And no less strikingly, although Israel is “buying” those weapons, the money, in the end, will come out of our pockets. Here’s how the Times describes it: “The $2.8 billion purchase is being funded from the Pentagon’s budget for foreign military sales. That means the money effectively flows from U.S. taxpayers to Israel’s military and then to U.S. munitions manufacturers.” So, you’re buying one-ton bombs for Israel and the giant weapons-making corporations are going to take in a small fortune on the deal.

One thing I think you can say: when it comes to destructive behavior, we humans simply can’t seem to stop. And it doesn’t matter whether, in the process, we also seem to be taking the planet down with us.

I mean, can you really believe that, more than six months ago, “our” president, the very guy who, in his first term, swore not to make war anywhere on Earth, launched one out of the blue against Iran that, all too predictably, hasn’t faintly ended yet? It has, of course, sent energy prices into a tizzy while ensuring that this world will be ever more expensive and dangerous for us all. If anything, as I was writing this, the situation was only worsening with Iran-backed Houthi rebels seizing the Red Sea port city of Mokha and two key islands near the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait (through which about 12% of global trade normally passes). That means, of course, that Iranian or Iranian-backed forces now control the entrance to that body of water, just as they do a significant part of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 25% of the planet’s maritime oil trade once passed (ensuring that so much of it might not reach the rest of the world any time soon). Add to that the bombing of Saudi Arabia’s key east-west oil pipeline and a backup in shipping at crucial passageways globally and you’ve got a distinct problem on this planet of anything-but-ours.

Of course, maybe we don’t even know enough about Washington’s latest role in all of this, since President Trump only recently banished CNN, MS Now, and Politico from the White House (while threatening to kick out “Other Fake News Media Outlets” in the future). And don’t for a moment think that, in the weeks to come, he couldn’t send those reporters to Iran. Or maybe for all we know, next week, he’ll pay a surprise visit to Tehran himself. Or, as he recently seemed to be threatening to do (in a moment of increasing desperation), possibly nuke that country. (”Do I blow the entire nation up?”)

After all, with this president of the (dis)United States of America, no one — and I mean no one– ever knows quite what’s likely to happen next week, not to speak of tomorrow (or even 20 minutes from now), least of all “our” president. He might, for instance, indeed announce next week (next month, next year) that Canada, Greenland, and Iceland are this country’s 51st, 52nd, and 53rd states.

Oh, and let me just add a little footnote here: “our” president only recently announced that the 250-foot arch he’s planning to build in Washington, D.C., won’t simply be a giant stone marker, larger than Paris’s Arc de Triomphe. Not at all. In fact, as the Washington Post recently reported, it could actually become a “top grade” “military complex” equipped with snipers and drones and distinctly geared up for warmaking in the nation’s capital. What could possibly go wrong then — in, of course, Donald Trump’s third or fourth term in office?

And yes, he would indeed qualify as a daily joke, a laughing matter except — at least as far as I’m concerned — no one (absolutely no one!) should be laughing when it comes to him, not on this ever grimmer and more embattled world of ours.

The second time around, as a climate-change denier, he’s literally (not figuratively) become the president from hell and high water since, on this Trumpianly warming planet of ours, the waters are indeed rising (and, if you count the ever more severe storms, falling, too) ever more strikingly. And among all the nightmares that now stare us in the face, who (other than Dave DeCamp of Antiwar.com) is paying the slightest attention to America’s ongoing war in Somalia (yes, Somalia!), where, believe it or not, the U.S. only recently launched at least its 83rd airstrike of 2026 (and it’s not even a news story in the age of Trump).

Oh, my mistake, I wasn’t going to mention “our” president in this piece, was I? But of course, right now, you’d have to consider that the biggest fantasy on this planet. In a way, you might even say that, as unmentionable as he should be (given what he’s invariably doing), he’s made himself the centerpiece of a planet at the boiling/dribbling/flooding/soaking point, while ensuring that whatever was happening would only be made worse by yet more war, war, war.

And give me credit, I was a writer of my word. I didn’t mention him once, did I? (Ha-ha!) And even though the November elections could prove to be a sweep-the-boards one for the Democrats, setting up yet another impeachment of You Know Who, what difference does Congress make to Donald Trump and his world of artificial unintelligence (or AUI).

Do you have the slightest doubt that “our” president — and you know just whom I mean, the president of Greenland, the president of hell and high water — could indeed ignore Congress for his final two (or do I mean three, or even four?) years in office? He might, in short, decide to impeach them and then where would we be?