President Donald Trump is displaying a “shruggy nihilism” toward the mass deaths caused by his policies, a major editor wrote on Friday — and it’s only getting worse.
Trump has so far killed 787 Iranians, including at least 175 children at an elementary school near a naval base, and at least six American service members, wrote Inae Oh, senior news and engagement editor at Mother Jones. She added that as of Friday more than 120 people in Lebanon have been killed as the war expands into the Middle East.
Despite the mounting death toll, Oh noted that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is excited to discuss the lethality except when American deaths are mentioned.
“The press only wants to make the president look bad,” Hegseth complained. By contrast, Oh wrote that Trump has a "shruggy nihilism” toward the mounting deaths, such as when he responded to a question about retaliatory attacks hurting Americans by saying “I guess.”
Trump then added, “But I think they’re worried about that all the time. We think about it all the time. We plan for it. But yeah, you know, we expect some things. Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.”
Oh argued that “unlike Hegseth, who appears drunk on performance as he thirsts for death, Trump’s thoughts on death here are eerily relaxed. They are notable because they appear to lack even a modicum of critical thinking. No, this is not a man remotely bothered by mass death. He simply does not care.”
Oh is not the only commentator to notice seemingly depraved behavior from Trump and his administration. Writing for the conservative publication The Bulwark, Joe Perticone argued that the administration allowing prediction markets to bet on the war was wrong.
“Like dogfighting, gambling on war is the sort of hobby that is best described in simple, direct moral terms,” Perticone argued. “(‘Satanic’ was the one that came to my mind.) But I wanted to pose the question about regulating or banning this industry to some of the lawmakers who are familiar with prediction markets.”
In general, the Iran war is proving increasingly unpopular among Trump’s conservative base.
"Since Donald Trump launched Operation Epic Fury last week," The Dispatch’s Michael Warren argued, "one thing has been clear: The most MAGA of MAGA media are not behind the president. Nowhere else has this been more apparent than on 'War Room,' the live program hosted by Steve Bannon that is part news analysis, part on-air strategy session for the new right. Starting with two days of emergency broadcasts over the weekend, Bannon has been joined by his series of regular guests to provide both neutral military analysis and, increasingly, carefully couched warnings that an extended military operation in Iran would be a terrible mistake…. Bannon, always with an eye toward the MAGA coalition, sounded particularly worried."
University of St. Andrews historian Phillips Payson O’Brien recently warned The Atlantic that the U.S. military is declining in its performance in part because of this poor leadership from the top.
“When a complex system starts to decay, the first signs are usually subtle,” O’Brien argued. “In the third century, after the Roman empire had reached its geographic maximum, literacy began to decline across Roman society. Education levels fell not only among soldiers, but among officers, aristocrats, and even emperors. The Roman army still looked formidable for years afterward. It had good equipment and could march well. Yet it was no longer as advanced relative to Rome’s enemies as it had once been. It fought as hard as ever, but less effectively.”