Why Trump May Become the Biggest War-Mongering President Ever

Donald Trump has the potential to be a very, very, very dangerous president. What I’ve seen so far scares the hell out of me.

The domestic bungling – the botched health care act, the impulsive, xenophobic travel bans, the secrecy, the paranoia, the lust for rule by diktat, the blatant disregard for facts – America can survive that. But if the president of the United States decides to start flinging around missiles and fighter jets, we could all become very screwed very quickly.

We now have the world’s alpha madman, and he’s sitting in the White House.

Here’s why Trump could entangle the U.S. in more armed conflicts than any other president in history:

* Whatever he said on the campaign trail about not meddling in other nations’ affairs, forget it. He has no fixed reality, no core. He’s a mess of unruly contradictions.

* There is a high chance that Trump is mentally unstable. He appears to be a textbook case of narcissistic personality disorder. Yes, he is a tin showman, a clown, but don’t underestimate the threat posed by a mentally unstable man who believes nothing is ever his fault and everyone is either out to get him or trying to take advantage of him.

* He will quickly be seduced by the military-industrial complex, which plays best to a man who is, underneath all his bluster, fairly insecure. Look at his farce of a proposed budget: a big increase in spending for the armed forces, while everything soft power or humanitarian is cut to the bone.

* He is very unpopular. War boosts a sagging president’s popularity, and what’s worse is he knows that.

* He will become frustrated by the courts and Congress blocking his agenda. One area where he will find he can act without restraint, and answer questions later, is military action.

* He is the king of the disproportionate and imprudent response; just look at his angry tweets about Arnold Scharzenegger and Nordstrom’s. So what will he do when terrorists strike U.S. interests somewhere around the world, as will inevitably happen at some point in the next four years?

* He is a bully, and war suits the swagger of an unrepentant bully.

* The observation has been made that Trump never wanted to be president; he wanted to play president. This is a deep truth. Trump mainly wants to make fiery rhetorical speeches and look like a president. And what looks more presidential than draping oneself in the pageantry of war and moving military pieces across the global chess board?

I hope this bad vision of mine doesn’t come to pass. But I worry like hell that Trump isn’t right in the head, and we won’t know how crazy our 45th president is until it’s too late.