Why Hasn’t Trump Started a War?

And why his presidency could have been far worse

I present to you a Trumpian mystery: Why hasn’t Donald Trump, as president, started a war to boost his short-term ratings — especially near the 2020 election — and to inflict much worse than rhetorical and other relatively minor damage on the world?

The Mystery of Trump’s Aversion to Carnage

The reason this is a mystery is that all the pieces seem to be in place for apocalyptic catastrophe. First, Trump is obviously a monster, as I explain elsewhere. Second, monstrous psychopaths — in particular, malignant narcissists who happen to be commander-in-chief of the American armed forces — would have the motive and the opportunity to perpetrate mass murder, such as by starting a war and taking few precautions against the killing of civilians (or perhaps even by targeting them).

Yet, third, while Trump has sometimes attempted to bully other countries verbally, including North Korea, China, and the other members of NATO, he hasn’t started a full-scale war as of early September 2020. On the contrary, during the campaign, Trump excoriated Bush Jr.’s Iraq War and has talked about withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan.

To appreciate the mystery here, notice that it’s common knowledge that Trump has denigrated other democracies and that he admires “strong” dictators. Judging from his opposition to democracy at home, his hampering of the free press and his willingness to cheat to win reelection, Trump would evidently prefer even for the U.S. to be an illiberal, autocratic society, more like Russia, China, or Orban’s Hungary.

So why hasn’t Trump capitalized on his presidential power and personal flagrant psychopathy and wiped fellow democracies from the face of the earth? Why hasn’t he allied with autocratic countries and started WWIII against the free nations?

The plot thickens, since the more obvious answers don’t apply. Such a war would be insane, immoral, and likely self-destructive, of course, but Trump is psychotic and amoral, and psychopaths are known to sabotage themselves, as in the case of the serial killer who leaves clues for the police because he subconsciously wants to be caught.

Perhaps a reasonable politician would fear there would be political backlash against such a war. But Trump is an excellent salesman; he’s interested in appealing only to the most reckless, belligerent, and depraved parts of the American population (who would eagerly support the war); and it’s well-known that the access media and the nation as a whole rally around the president when the country goes to war, as long as the president engages in the standard demonization of his targets. Both Bushes benefitted from the latter infamous dynamic in their Gulf Wars.

Or perhaps Trump is too busy starting a second civil war at home to be bothered to manage a war on foreign soil. But in that case, why hasn’t Trump used federal troops not just in riots, but to round up progressives for supporting the so-called deep state conspiracy against his administration?

In other words, why hasn’t Trump backed up his conspiracy theories with force to make the civil war a bloody reality rather than just an implicit empty slogan or the typical Republican betrayal of Enlightenment values of humanism, on behalf of the latent American plutocrats?

The Solution: Two Types of Bullies

A more likely explanation is that Trump is the kind of bully who pretends to be aggressive to conceal deep-seated insecurities, who attacks others but quickly backs off when the would-be victims hit back.

But this only shifts the mystery to the nature of this pseudo-bully. Trump’s monstrousness is real and palpable. Even if Trump were only acting as a would-be tyrant, playing a role to appeal to a certain demographic for political advantage, the choice of that performance and the skills involved in sustaining it for years on a daily basis would themselves be monstrous.

There are, though, evidently two kinds of bullies, diverging along the lines of their formative conditions. There are the bullies (antisocial aggressors, psychopaths, malignant narcissists, and so on) who grow up in war-torn countries or who are introduced to horrific violence from a young age. We can call these the “pure monsters,” since they lack even rhetorical respect for human rights, morality, spirituality, or progress.

Then there are those who are genetically predisposed to antisocial behaviour, but who grow up in liberal democracies. These bullies are exposed to a humanistic culture from a young age or may even be pampered if they happen to be born into a wealthy family; either way, they haven’t been conditioned to relish violence.

Trump is the second type of bully, a hybrid or a paradoxical humanistic authoritarian: he has the monstrous instincts to be a full-blown tyrant, but lacks the sadist’s appetite for murder. Trump is cruel, selfish, and amoral, to be sure, but because he grew up in a privileged American family and has no military experience, he expressed his aggression only via bloodless capitalistic channels, in the New York real estate market and in reality television.

He’s a businessman, not a conqueror. He dominates the masses by double-crossing them with shady business practices, going bankrupt multiple times to betray his contractors and investors. He hasn’t been trained to inflict more inhuman losses by slaughtering his victims. From a psychopathic standpoint, he had the misfortune of being raised in a liberal part of a progressive country that tries to lead the way in protecting human rights.

By contrast, full-blown tyrants either are products of failed states or have personal military experience which whets their appetite for wanton destruction. For example, although Hitler lived through the liberal Weimar Republic, he grew up in the repressive, militaristic German Empire and served in WWI. Stalin was involved in both Russian Revolutions in 1905 and 1917, served briefly in WWI and was a commander in the Russian civil war before succeeding Lenin as a paranoid dictator. Idi Amin was recruited to the British colonial army and served for decades, rising in rank before seizing power in the Ugandan coup.

Most tyrants before the Renaissance and the waves of humanistic progress (including the Scientific, Industrial, and American Revolutions) were raised under relatively barbarous conditions: violence was commonplace and death was out in the open. This accounts for the likes of Genghis Kahn and Vlad the Impaler.

Like Trump, Caligula was born into privilege and ancient Rome was relatively civilized like the United States, but unlike the New Yorker President, Caligula was born not just to a real estate tycoon but to the first ruling family of the Roman Empire, and that empire was more brutal than the Pax Americana. Caligula grew up on the battlefield, accompanying his father, the roman general, who was assassinated by the emperor.

Although Nero didn’t grow up in the military, he likely ascended to power via his mother’s assassination of Emperor Claudius. Nero’s mother was Caligula’s sister, so Nero, too, would have been exposed to brutal violence from a young age.

In short, Trump’s father and later his mentor, Roy Cohn, evidently failed to initiate Donald Trump into the darkest arts; they taught him how to deceive, double-cross, and exploit loopholes in the tax code and the mass media, but not how to physically torture or kill. Trump lacks the stomach for actual butchery, because American humanism and his plush upbringing mitigated his nascent psychopathy.

This is why Trump’s presidency could have been far worse. As unscrupulous as he is, Trump lacks the bone-deep craving for full-on tyranny. His authoritarianism is largely rhetorical and stylistic, a sales ploy to browbeat business competitors; he betrays others behind their back, hiding behind structural weakness in American politics, capitalism, and culture rather than looking his enemies in the eye before strangling them with his bare hands. Trump’s inhumanity is characterized by a conniving sort of treachery and con-artistry, not by the up-front vileness of a bloodthirsty killer.

Trump hasn’t started a real war at home or abroad because he’s only a spoiled American monster. Heaven help the United States and the world if a Trumpian demagogue should arise not from the American plutocracy but from its ruthless military.