Trump 2.0: 

It's come to this! Hate, spite, greed, and callousness, ignorance seen as admirable, as virtues.  Donald Trump wasn't voted in despite his extremism, he was voted in because of it. His base doesn’t see his aggression, narcissism, and authoritarian fantasies as flaws—they see them as features. They see him as a hard man, and Trump is basking in the hard man facade. Have you seen his presidential portrait? Lit from below, scowling, trying way too hard to look tough, This image shows more than you think. He's reenacting his mugshot. It's a calculated move, not just a bizarre flex. 

For his base, the mugshot isn’t a mark of criminality; it’s a rallying cry, proof that he’s the anti-establishment warrior they believe is fighting for them against a corrupt system. By immortalising it in his official portrait, he's cementing his identity as the political outsider, the man who “beat the system” and came back stronger.

Trump has always longed to be seen as a hard man. He thinks strength equals success. He believes being tough makes people respect and follow him. Yet it's all bluff. Trump is a hard man until someone stands up to him, and them he shuts his mouth and scurries away, only to lie afterwards that he won some grand victoriy. An inadequate little man acting the bully, and his appalling supporters lap it up, because they're inadequate little people too.  To them, he’s the strongman they crave. And now, though he barely won the election, he claims a mandate to reshape America into his kingdom. 

At home, Trump will make an already structurally racist, inequitable basket case of a country even more so, and proudly so. And the ones screaming the loudest for this dystopian future will suffer for it.  Abroad, Trump is set to dismantle the fragile post-war world order—not in some righteous upheaval that redistributes wealth and power, but in a chaotic power grab that threatens global stability. Trump’s open hostility towards allies isn’t some cerebral chess move; it’s petulance wrapped in patriotism. Threats to "take back the Panama Canal" make Canada the 51st state play to his fans and in their eyes he looks like a conqueror. Yet it's telling that he isn't standing up to the real despots around the world. Partly because he admires them and partly because he's weak. 

Deep down he’s insecure and needs constant praise to feel powerful. And that is a problem. Flattery, not diplomacy, is the key to his heart, and bad actors across the globe know it. Say the right things, stroke his ego, and they’ll get what they want. Meanwhile, the billionaires circling him are getting ready for a feeding frenzy, stripping the economy for parts and leaving working people in the shit. 

Allies who once relied on American leadership will be left scrambling, and the vacuum won’t be filled with anything good. Instead of a fairer world, we’ll get a more volatile one, with the same elites hoarding power while the rest of us pick up the pieces.

But here’s the real tragedy: with the exception of a few, most notably Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, world leaders aren’t just failing to contain him—they’re actively enabling him. They humor him, they coddle him, they hope to wait him out. Doctor Sheinbaum PHD  is a far more impressive character than Trump. She is an  energy engineer and was part of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change team that won a Nobel peace price in 2007. Sheinbaum had no qualms about putting Trump back in his box when he lied about their first telephone conversation. More recently, she used humour to rubbish his absurd proposal to rename the Gulf of Mexica to the Gulf of America. Sheinbaum proposed that North America be renamed “America Mexicana” or “Mexican America”. However, her humour hides a will of iron that would freeze Trump in his stride. In a staring contest with Sheinbaum, Trump would blink, cower, and shit himself. 

If only more world leaders would stand up to Trump.  Appeasement didn’t work in the 1930s, and it won’t work now. What’s needed is a firm, united front. Instead of caving to his tantrums, they should be calling his bluff, standing their ground, and reminding him that the world isn’t his personal plaything.

Because if they don’t, he’ll break it. And we’ll all be left paying the price.