Trump’s Spite War and the Empire in Denial

American Foreign Policy: In Search of Monsters to Destroy

How meme warfare, judicial chokeholds, and moral exhaustion paved a runway straight to Tehran

Donald Trump is not a shadow lurking at the edge of American democracy. He is the state. The 47th President. Elected—again—not by coup, but through ballots and blood sport. And when, in June 2025, he greenlit the B-2s to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, it wasn’t rogue adventurism. It was the inevitable outcome of a trapped presidency turned outward.

The playbook wasn’t new—it just had fewer euphemisms.

Blocked by courts from implementing mass deportations. Undermined on tariffs. Cornered by a judiciary that suddenly found its love for process. Trump did what presidents do when the domestic war is off-limits: he started a foreign one. Not to spread democracy. Not to “liberate.” But to remind the world—and his base—that he still had power left to swing.

This wasn’t wag-the-dog. This was spite war—military action not to achieve policy but to avenge paralysis.

And somehow, this wasn’t un-American. It was peak American.

Because the U.S. has long preferred demolition to diplomacy. Our legacy abroad reads like a wrecking report: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria. Humanitarian imperialism, cloaked in moral language, leaving behind what one might call “rubbleization”—the systematic breaking of functioning (if flawed) regimes into privatized chaos. Call it Operation Regime Collapse. Call it the Soft Power Empire. Call it empire-in-denial.

Trump, to his credit, dropped the pretense. No blue helmets. No brochures. Just leverage, bombs, and a handshake if you’re an ally who doesn’t whine.

Israel, of course, remains the sacred cow in this arrangement. To neocons, evangelicals, and nationalists alike, Israel isn’t just a strategic partner—it’s the last Western nation that still plays by the old rules: borders, bullets, and unapologetic strength. While America frets over DEI briefings, Israel fights. It doesn’t explain itself. And in the American imagination—shaped by thrillers, spy films, and blue fairy godmother Mossad agents—that means something.

So when Trump backed Israel—or bombed on its behalf—he wasn’t betraying MAGA’s isolationist streak. He was affirming its logic. America First doesn’t mean America Alone. It means loyalty over liberalism, alliances over apologies, and competence over consensus.

Back home, the contradictions multiply. The Right cosplays rebellion while running the government. The Left stages resistance through algorithms, NGOs, and the alphabet soup of federal power. Both claim to be the Rebel Alliance. Both operate like Death Stars. And meanwhile, the country rots under regime warfare—where lawfare replaces legislation, narrative replaces fact, and elections become the only part of democracy we remember to perform.

The empathy engine, too, is out of gas. The “baby gambit” no longer moves the public. We’ve seen too many fake cries, too many staged sobs, too many selective spotlights. Gaza, Ukraine, ICE cages—none of it lands like it used to. Weaponized empathy broke under its own overuse. We are not post-moral. We are post-caring.

Trump thrives here. Not despite scandal—but because of it. He eats shame for breakfast. Mugshots become merch. Indictments become slogans. Ivanka jokes become meme lore. He is not a candidate. He is a meme engine. A “shame-eater king.” The political embodiment of antifragility. He can’t be grokked because he’s not playing the same game. He metabolizes your disgust and turns it into devotion.

So when you ask why he bombed Iran, remember: he couldn’t deport. He couldn’t detain. He couldn’t rule the way he wanted. So he did the next best thing: he ruled where no one could stop him.

That’s not authoritarianism.

That’s Americanism—with the mask ripped off.