Pope Trump
How far will his ego go and where will it take all the rest of us?
I can’t even put this under “Doomer Humor” because The Trump posted this himself and said in all seriousness that his greatest aspiration would be to become pope. While it is easy to write his post off as an attempt at humor, I see a man of cavernous ambition longing to try the papal cloth on for size and see how it fits—not that he believes he can become the actual pope, but I think he envies the global adoration, for the pope’s billion adoring fans certainly exceed his own fan share, and Trump is a man who seems to need endless amounts of adoration and needs to be Number One, which is more what I think his finger is indicating than it is pointing to Jesus, perhaps another contender in Trump’s mind for affection that could be and should be his.
Trump had previously joked with reporters how he wouldn't be against succeeding the late Catholic leader, adding: 'I'd like to be Pope. That would be my number one choice.'
Some people took umbrage over this whole thing.
Trump's post has been met with outrage online with many branding the move as 'a great disrespect', urging the US President to remove the post immediately.
'Trump is literally mocking the Christian world with this image he shared,' one said: 'And on a day when Catholics are mourning the death of their spiritual leader, Pope Francis.'
'Is anyone else surprised that Trump would be so brazenly sacrilegious? Me either. Classless,' a second said.
'Trump, as someone outside the U.S., I find your post utterly disrespectful to the Catholic community worldwide,' a third added.
'The papacy is a sacred institution for millions, and this mockery is an affront to their beliefs.'
Those who support him would say, “It was just a joke. Get over it. You have TDS”—the stock answer whenever Trump gets criticized for his endless publicity stunts that are intended to keep him at the center of the news everyday.
I think Trump enjoys being dressed by AI to look like the pope and was even running a flag up the pole to see whether people would respond with reverence or rage because any attention is good in his world. Good to be the center of everyone’s rage because it proves how much you matter; and, of course, always wonderful to be at the center of admiration. However, as Trump ponders what it would be like to be so adored by millions and have people kiss your ring all day, I ponder the reaches of megalomania and wonder how far it will go.
The Ukrainian papal blessing
Putin wasn’t invited to Pope Francis’ funeral or chose not to go. Some are even saying the late Pope’s final miracle was in getting US President Trump to embrace Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at his funeral, bringing the two together for a deal that both feel is good for their nations.
The outcome was dubbed Pope Francis' 'final miracle' as the US President dramatically turned against tyrant Vladimir Putin following their discussions in the Vatican.
The US President accused the Russian despot of 'stringing him along' over Ukraine peace talks - as Trump's fury over Russia's latest deadly missile strikes against Kyiv boiled over.
And in a remarkable warming of relations, the 78-year-old billionaire embraced Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky during a fleeting meeting in the Vatican ahead of the funeral of the late Pontiff….
Talks between the Ukrainian and American leaders were 'very productive', according to White House communications director Steven Cheung, with Zelensky later taking to X echoing his hopes for 'results' on their discussions.
'Protecting lives of our people. Full and unconditional ceasefire. Reliable and lasting peace that will prevent another war from breaking out,' he wrote: 'Very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results.'
And later, in a furious broadside against Putin, Trump accused the Russian of trying to scupper peace talks with his repeated onslaught against Ukraine.
'There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days. It makes me think that maybe he doesn't want to stop the war, he's just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently,' the American leader raged in a post on Truth Social today.
Trump - who later landed back in America with his wife Melania, said the US had to deal 'differently' with the Kremlin' either via 'banking' and 'secondary sanctions.'
Dealing differently with the Kremlin now has a good part of Trump’s base enraged, including most notably the always brazenly outspoken Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has been openly critical of Trump’s new partnership with Ukraine and his displeasure toward Orthodox Papa Putin:
“I represent the base and when I’m frustrated and upset over the direction of things, you better be clear, the base is not happy,” wrote Greene….
“I campaigned for no more foreign wars. And now we are supposedly on the verge of going to war with Iran,” she said. “I don’t think we should be bombing foreign countries on behalf of other foreign countries, especially when they have their own nuclear weapons and massive military strength….”
Greene was long considered part of an extremist minority in the Republican Party, voicing support for a range of wild conspiracy theories, QAnon, and the whole “Jewish space lasers” thing. However, her loyalty to Trump has since been rewarded and she is now one of the president’s closest allies, serving as the chair of the Department of Government Efficiency subcommittee.
But, right now, she’s on the rampage.
In a warning to Republicans, the congresswoman claimed in her post that “When you are losing MTG, you are losing the base. And Trump isn’t on the ballot in the future, so do the math on that.”
If she’s not careful, she may wind up excommunicated.
There are profits to be handled and there are prophets who are handlers.
Trump does have an inner circle of prophets he can turn to if the darts of MTG become too hot for him. He is encircled by both religious prophets and now by memecoin profits, and while his sons made bank in the unholy halls of mammon today, which is also all over the news with talk about the greatest emoluments any president has ever experienced, it is Trump’s religious prophets who have already convinced him and themselves and their millions of followers that Trump is God’s anointed or appointed leader. You can read about them in this earlier article I wrote if you need to be brought up to speed on just how ensconced Trump has become in some apocalyptic circles:
I wonder, as I watch Trump’s wild swings over the entire global economy if perhaps he is appointed by God but just for a much different purpose than his prophets purport. Is Trump God’s wrecking ball for the world? Is divine judgement coming upon the earth like Nebuchadnezzar came upon ancient Israel tearing the nation down to nothing and putting all of its people in exile? I even wonder, if Trump cannot get the job of pope or, at least, the adoration that the pope gets, might all that ego and greed of human ambition rise to an Antichrist pinnacle here so he can try to enjoy the adulation that Jesus gets as a stand in?
How far will his broken ego take him in its need to fill the endless inner void?
Another writer joins me today in using this analogy that I’ve used for Trump:
Donald Trump’s reckless trade war is gutting America’s supply chains and dragging us back into a crisis we barely survived. If you thought pandemic shortages were bad, wait until this economic siege hits your neighborhood. This time, no one’s safe—not Democrats, not Republicans, not independents. This is a full-blown assault on the American economy.
This isn’t just a blunder—it’s a blueprint for collapse. Donald Trump is using trade policy like a wrecking ball, smashing through America’s fragile supply chains and sending shockwaves through every grocery store, pharmacy, and small business in the country.
And even if he stopped today, the damage is already locked in. We’re staring down the barrel of months—maybe years—of shortages, price hikes, and vanishing choices. This isn’t a side effect of some well-meaning policy. This is a calculated strike against the working people of America.
As supply chain expert Bryan Gross puts it, “We are in a period of unprecedented disruption that’s not going to stop.” The system is broken, and Trump is making sure it stays that way—stacking erratic trade moves on top of global unrest.
Business leaders, economists, and even his own advisors are warning: we’re just weeks away from new shortages. Back-to-school season? Jeopardized. Halloween? Slim pickings. The holidays? Don't count on it. The screws are tightening—and it’s not accidental.
Chaos Is the Plan.
Now some will say this is just diatribe or TDS or, in the very least, hyperbole or too much worry, but another highly respected expert in freight logistics fully agrees in another article in today’s headlines, and he speaks in the same kind of apocalyptic imagery that would befit a false pope or a man of false profits:
The CEO Who Says an Asteroid Is Coming to Destroy America’s Businesses
Ryan Petersen, the founder and chief executive of Flexport, which helps companies move all kinds of stuff from wherever it’s made to wherever it’s sold] is explaining to anyone who will listen why hefty U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports could be catastrophic for America’s small businesses.
“If they don’t change the tariffs, it’s going to be an extinction-level, asteroid-wiping-out-the-dinosaurs kind of event,” he told me. “Only these aren’t dinosaurs. These are dynamic, healthy businesses.”
He knows this because those businesses are his customers.
They use Flexport to transport products from the factory to your front door. Petersen’s company handles everything from booking space on planes, trucks and enormous ocean carriers to managing all the tedious paperwork along the way.
It’s a sleek tech platform that gives Petersen a window into the entire global economy, providing a real-time look at the situation on the ground and on the water. He can track exactly how much it costs to ship any item anywhere—and how much more it costs because of tariffs….
If the tariffs on Chinese goods continue at this rate, he says, thousands of American companies will fail and millions of employees will lose their jobs….
For now, they are paralyzed. Before long, they could be pulverized….
Petersen knows how [supply chains] work better than just about anyone.
I’ve warned since the start of the year that Trump’s promised tariff wars would be disastrous, and they continue to play out in the ways and at the pace I expected—broad in application and eventual impact but slow to show up as economic damage at first (for a month or two) but then certain to gain momentum in the next couple of months … even if China were to capitulate to Trump’s demands in the next couple of weeks:
This past week, he traveled from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., where he spent two days meeting with government officials to make the case that tariffs pose an existential threat to his customers.
America’s biggest and most powerful businesses have armies of lobbyists and CEOs who dine with the president. Even for them, tariffs are disruptive. But for America’s small businesses, they could be destructive.
I’m sue we all remember what happened to some of the small but good restaurants we liked during the brief Covid lockdowns. Well, this is round, too, and it is set to be every bit as big and to last much longer.
Through no fault of their own, he explains, their business models have broken. They can’t afford the latest tariffs on Chinese goods. But Vietnam’s factories won’t bother with their production jobs, so they also can’t move their manufacturing out of China. “If they could,” Petersen said, “they would have.” Meanwhile, there is too much in flux to figure out what they should do. And if they haven’t moved their supply chains already, there’s no point in moving them yet. “It’s either too late or too early,” Petersen said….
Even companies that planned for tariffs are scrambling because of how steep they are and how suddenly they were implemented.
When American businesses place orders in China, it takes about 90 days before their goods are ready for shipping, Petersen says, which means they couldn’t have priced in such crippling tariffs. They were basically punished for decisions they made in a completely different business environment.
The China is breaking
Of course, China is struggling mightily, too, so there is always hope that they might cave in, but I think egos and dictatorial control over the populace make that unlikely. However, with billions of citizens, China’s government has plenty of reason to fear a peasant revolt, and one appears to be building:
President Donald Trump’s hard-hitting tariffs on China appear to be taking a toll, disrupting Chinese factories and sparking worker protests over unpaid wages….
Factories across all of China have begun shutting down and furloughing workers "as the trade war unleashed by US President Donald Trump dries up orders for products ranging from jeans to home appliances…."
Chinese factory owners told the FT that American customers have cancelled or suspended orders, forcing them to cut production….
Now, according to Radio Free Asia, protests are erupting across China - from Hunan’s Dao County to Sichuan’s Suining City and Inner Mongolia’s Tongliao. Hundreds of enraged workers are storming the streets, blasting unpaid wages and wrongful firings as factories collapse under the crushing force of President Trump’s relentless U.S. tariffs, the news outlet said….
Goldman Sachs warned last month that Trump’s tariffs put roughly 16 million jobs in China at risk, saying that the increases will “significantly weigh on the Chinese economy.” In April, China’s manufacturing activity plunged more than expected to a 16-month low, entering into contractionary territory, with the official purchasing managers’ index sinking to 49.0.
I reported, of course, over the weekend that a recession of equal magnitude is settling over America, laying out statistics even worse than those given here for China.
Trump’s answer to the pain that is building was literally, “Let them play with fewer dolls.”
Even if both Trump and Xi become ready to come to any deal they can in a hurry to save their foundering nations, this isn’t going to transition back to normal anytime soon. As I said in my weekend Deeper Dive, we saw how long it took to transition out of the brief Covidcrisis with some troubles still way out of control today (like the housing data I gave, which went completely insane during those lockdowns and is still insane, though starting to finally shift a little).
Supply chain experts like Jason Miller are clear: the pressure point is coming fast. Even if the ports don’t grind to a complete halt, the variety of goods we’ve come to rely on will shrink. What’s left will cost more, arrive later, and benefit fewer.
And if the tariffs are suddenly lifted? It’s not relief—it’s a stampede. Bottlenecks, backorders, more chaos. Once the gears of global trade grind to a halt, they don’t just flip back on with a switch….
The exact same thing I said when the Covid lockdowns began. Some things would come on immediately, and everyone would be amazed, but you’d know what the permanent damage was by what things did not just turn back on, and there would be plenty of that, too … and there was.
Port traffic is slowing. Orders are down. Retailers are panicking. The time to act was yesterday, but Trump is still throwing matches at the fuse.
“We’re already past the tipping point,” says Gross. This is more than economic mismanagement. This is a controlled demolition of the system we all depend on.
“Controlled demolition.” So, I’m going with God’s wrecking ball for what was once called “the New World Order,” all of America included. Trump isn’t going to make anything great again. He’s an agent of destruction, and his megalomania is fully piqued to make that happen for his own ego’s sake because of how he struck out last time and how he perceives himself to have been wrongly abused and now fully empowered, and he’s intent upon gravitating as much more power to himself as he can.
Economania (national & global economic collapse plus market news)
The CEO Who Says an Asteroid Is Coming to Destroy America’s Businesses
Ford suspends 2025 guidance amid $2.5 billion tariff impact
Rite Aid files for second bankruptcy in two years
‘A Geopolitical And Economic Paradigm Shift’
Real-Estate Rubble (housing, commercial & global real-estate bubble trouble)
The Housing Mirage: Cracks in the American Dream as Economic Collapse Looms
Money Matters (monetary policy, metals, cryptos, currency wars & going cashless)
Trump set to raise millions from crypto and memecoin this month
Triggering the Dollar’s Fateful Demise
Credit Suisse to pay $511 million for helping U.S. taxpayers hide over $4 billion overseas
Inflation Factors (from too much money chasing too few goods due to weather, sanctions, tariffs, quarantines, etc.)
Donald Trump’s ‘Marie Antoinette moment’: call for national sacrifice falls flat
Mattel pulls annual forecasts, will hike prices as tariffs raise costs
Wars & Rumors of War, Revolts, Hacks & Cyberattacks + AI threats
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AI Getting More Powerful, but Its Hallucinations Getting Worse
Trump Trade Wars & Turf Wars
Trump’s Trade War Is Starving the Economy—And Every American Will Pay
China Hit By Worker Protests Over Unpaid Wages, Factory Shutdowns
US Border Towns Ravaged by Canada’s Furious Boycott
Trump threatens 100% tariff on foreign-made films
Tariffs Start Washing into the Government Checking Account
Political Pandemonium & Social Senescence (socio-political issues & events)
Donald Trump posts picture of himself as pope a week after Francis' funeral
‘Frustrated’ MTG Unleashes Laundry List of Complaints Against Trump Admin
Air Traffic Controller Warns Major Airport Unsafe for Travel: ‘Avoid Newark at All Costs’
Newark Airport radar loss left controllers blind for 90 seconds
Trump Upset After Getting Roasted by Karl Rove
A Trump Family Push for Profit on Three Continents Breaks Historical Norms
Good insights. Linking as usual @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
David, we have been headed for the global crash for years, why blame Trump. The WEF and the like needed a kick in the teeth. When the on eQuad-Trillion in derivatives explode are you going to blame Trump as well. The world did not need 1000-Trillion of off the book's transactions behind the scenes on a 1% margin. The house of cards will fall. You are a very smart guy or I would not read your stuff. Trump is an easy mark, dig into the real problems please. Trump is a small fish compared to what is waiting around the corner. As always all the best.