Donald Trump: A cancer upon the world that needs to be dealt with

It wouldn't be shocking to say that many global leaders hope that nature takes it course and Trump succumbs to age or a health issue that removes him from office and this world permanently.  

 
By Fareed Khan 
A version of this can be found on Substack.

Donald Trump is a walking catastrophe of a human being, a man so devoid of basic decency, empathy, or any shred of genuine humanity that his very existence feels like an insult to the human species. In essence, he is a cancer upon the world.

This is not hyperbole. It is the cold, observable truth about a narcissistic sociopath, a man-child whose every action radiates selfishness, megalomania, cruelty, and a chilling indifference to the suffering his words and actions leave in his wake. He doesn’t care about how his behaviour harms people—never has, never will.

To Trump, human beings are props to be used for his personal benefit, or obstacles to be overcome in the endless melodrama of his own ego. The pain and suffering, the death, the economic ruin, and the democratic erosion he has caused aren’t unfortunate side effects, they are foreseeable results that any truly intelligent person with an ounce of humanity could predict. But, ultimately, to him they are irrelevant, because nothing registers on his brain unless it flatters him and boosts his ego, or threatens his fragile, bloated self-image.

Look at the Middle East right now, teetering on the edge of a catastrophic war that could claim millions of lives. Before February 28 there was a tense peace among the nations of the region and oil was flowing freely through the Strait of Hormuz. But Trump’s reckless actions, launching an illegal and unprovoked war against Iran, in conjunction with Israel, his political posturing, his genocidal rhetoric, and his dangerous game of brinkmanship—culminating in a blockade of the Strait—are shoving the region toward chaos, and could drag in other nations affected by the crisis his actions have created. Oil flows have been disrupted, global supply chains strangled, and innocent people killed by American and Israeli attacks—all because of one man’s irrational, impulsive bullying style of “diplomacy”, and because his fragile ego demands attention.

Trump doesn’t lose sleep over the mothers burying children killed by US bombs, refugees fleeing US-Israeli attacks, or people being unable to afford food. Why would he? Compassion isn’t part of his emotional vocabulary. He’s too busy smirking in front of cameras, turning foreign policy into a reality TV spectacle, while real human lives are upended. His lack of humanity and his embrace of what can only be termed evil aren’t flaws he tries to hide, it’s who he is to the core. He revels in strength as a form of domination, never as a way to protect the vulnerable or uplift the weak. The suffering of innocents? Mere collateral damage in his quest for personal victory at all costs.

And then there is the economy. Trump’s bull-in-a-china-shop antics are barrelling the world towards a global recession, stoking inflation, and will push interest rates higher with every chaotic tweet and every effort to make the Iranians succumb to his unconditional demands. Families worldwide are already feeling the squeeze—sky high gas prices, higher food prices, layoffs as businesses try to cut rising costs, and plans for the future put on hold due to uncertainty. Yet he charges ahead, indifferent to how his actions sow chaos and misery in the lives of ordinary people. This is the same man who, in his first term as president, displayed a chilling indifference to the fragile interconnectedness of our world, deliberately weaponizing personal vendettas against his political enemies in ways that left a trail of devastation among the vulnerable—both at home and abroad.

Trump doesn’t care about the single mother struggling to feed her kids because grocery costs spiked. He doesn’t care about the factory worker whose livelihood vanishes in a trade war he started. To him, humanity and compassion are not virtues but fatal weaknesses—signs of inferiority to be exploited and crushed. Those who dare display empathy deserve nothing less than public humiliation, served up like sacrificial lambs to feed his endless hunger for dominance. He mocks the merciful, belittles the decent, and gazes upon them with the cold contempt of a tyrant surveying peasants, reminding us all that in his dark vision of America, kindness is treason and strength means only the ruthless exercise of raw power.

The world is utterly sick of Donald Trump. From European capitals to Asian financial hubs, from Latin American streets to African villages feeling the indirect shocks of his actions, people watch the circus he has created with a mixture of horror and exhaustion. His antics aren’t just embarrassing anymore, they are dangerous. A superpower led by a man with the emotional maturity of a spoiled toddler, armed with nuclear codes and the world’s largest military, is a recipe for global instability and disarray far beyond what we are already enduring.

It would not be shocking to say that many global leaders secretly hope that nature takes it course and Trump succumbs to age or a health issue that removes him from office and this world permanently. They likely hope that this exhausting chapter in world history ends before the damage Trump has inflicted becomes irreversible. And they are likely joined by tens of millions around the world who feel similarly. It’s safe to say these would be the sentiments of people who are exhausted, who see one man-child holding the planet hostage, and who can’t wait until the Trumpian nightmare ends.

Americans who still possess a conscience—those who didn’t vote for him and those who now regret their vote—must confront the ugly reality. Under Trump, there is no politics as usual. What America faces is the outcome of a collective insanity, which has been building for years, that placed in the presidency a man who is dismantling their democracy brick by brick, while torching the world order that preserved a fragile global peace for eighty years. His pathological personality, serial lying, bombast, and dangerous rhetoric are not mere quirks. They are weaponized personality disorders that are laying waste to the very foundations of the imperfect civil society built from the ashes of World War Two.

This is a man who lies every time his lips move because truth threatens his fragile ego. Fact-checkers have tallied thousands of lies whenever he has spoken publicly or posted on social media, yet he doubles down with that signature smirk, daring anyone to call him out. His amorality is disgusting and dangerous. He praises dictators, cozies up to authoritarians, and treats democratic norms like inconvenient suggestions. Ethics? Accountability? According to Trump these are for suckers. He operates on pure transactional self-interest, where loyalty is demanded, and betrayal is met with venomous rage.

The truth is that the world is utterly sick of Donald Trump’s face, his grating voice, and that perpetual, menacing sneer that drips with entitlement and barely concealed insecurity. This is a man who has openly mocked the disabled, ridiculed war heroes, and degraded women through vulgar, boastful tirades that expose a vicious misogyny and a self-loathing he projects onto the entire world. His racism and bigotry are no longer whispered dog whistles but brazen, inflammatory rallying cries that deliberately summon humanity’s darkest tribal impulses. Trump channels a chilling, Hitlerian vision of dominance—a “fourth Reich” fantasy in which a white supremacist-tinged America demands global submission to him and his cabal of billionaire sycophants, who feed their insatiable greed and lust for unchecked power. He surrounds himself with loyal enablers who eagerly amplify his hatred, mainstream conspiracy theories, and display open contempt for every democratic institution that dares restrain his authoritarian ambitions. How can any decent person witness this rising threat without feeling a profound and urgent sense of revulsion?

Democracy in the US is itself under threat because to Trump, it’s not a sacred system of checks, balances, and peaceful transitions. It is a tool to be bent or broken when it doesn’t deliver what he craves. His actions are not just unravelling American democracy, but also the fragile post-World War Two order, pushing alliances to the brink of fracture, and inviting adversaries to exploit the global divisions he is creating.

The 33% of eligible American voters who knowingly returned Donald Trump to power—fully aware of the Access Hollywood tape, the endless scandals, the racial incitement, and his pathological lying—bear a heavy responsibility. The MAGA crowd decided that character didn’t matter, that racism, misogyny, and raw amorality were acceptable in a leader rather than disqualifiers. Their blind loyalty has created a frightening cult of personality that prizes grievance over governance and spectacle over substance, normalizing the abnormal, and handing the nation’s steering wheel to a drunk driver.

Americans who care about their nation—truly care, beyond partisan tribalism—must come together now to halt this madman before he destroys what’s left of their democracy, not to mention, the impact that unravelling of the US will have globally. It falls to them to rise above the noise and chaos that Trump peddles, and demand better. This isn’t about right versus left, it’s about sanity versus insanity, humanity versus nihilism.

The people of the US must unite across divides—progressives, moderates, conservatives who still believe in democracy and principles over personality. They must organize, vote, speak out, hold the people who enable Trump accountable. They must pressure Republican congressional representatives and senators to prioritize country over cult, lest the nation that is celebrating the 250th anniversary of its founding this year, comes apart at the seams. The world cannot afford three more years of the global danger Trump represents. His actions don’t just damage America, they endanger the entire world by amplifying irrationality and instability.

Donald Trump doesn’t represent America’s best. He enables its worst. He must be rejected, constrained, and if possible arrested, tried and convicted, if Americans are to reclaim the democracy he treats as his personal playground. Before it’s too late, before the pain spreads further, before the world pays an even steeper price, for one man’s profound lack of soul and dearth of humanity.

This maniac must be stopped. Americans who love their nation more than they fear discomfort must act decisively. The suffering Trump has caused and could yet unleash demands nothing less.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

By disqualifying Anjali Appadurai from party’s leadership race BC NDP sends message that smart, savvy, racialized women need not apply

By Fareed Khan and Jenn Courtney 

 

When British Columbia premier John Horgan announced his resignation earlier this year, thereby initiating a race for the leadership of the province’s New Democratic Party, little did anyone expect that it would end in controversy with the party disqualifying Anjali Appadurai, one of the two candidates in the race. 

 

 

Many NDP supporters reacted to the decision by claiming that it smacks of racism and misogyny, and is the latest example of how the party has strayed from its social democratic roots under Horgan's leadership.  The party that prides itself on standing for progressive values, promoting diversity, equity and inclusivity, fighting racism, and supporting women has done exactly the opposite with this decision. 

 

The reason given for Appadurai's disqualification is that she broke rules set out by the NDP for the leadership race by engaging with a third party to help sell memberships in support of her candidacy.  However, the rules prohibiting third party engagement came into effect on August 31st and were retroactively applied to an event Appadurai attended on August 6th.  How can someone be disqualified for violating a rule that did not exist at the time the alleged infraction took place?  Appadurai's supporters and long-time party members have called this retroactive application of the rule unjust and undemocratic, and expressed disappointment and disgust by this betrayal of NDP values. 

 

One has to wonder what the party's top leaders were thinking when they made this decision, and how they treated Appadurai in its aftermath.  According to leaked reports the party did not give her an opportunity to appeal the disqualification, and a motion at the leadership council to allow an appeal was dismissed outright. 

 

On its face the disqualification certainly appears to be an example of racism and misogyny, not to mention that racialized communities which flocked to support Appadurai will see it as further political disenfranchisement of people who are vastly underrepresented in politics. 

 

But the fix seemed to be in from the beginning.  The NDP attacked Appadurai from the moment she announced her candidacy, and sabotaged her every step of the way – a flagrantly anti-democratic move against a racialized woman who dared to threaten the hold of the white boys club at the top of the party. 

 

During the campaign Appadurai was clearly more successful in selling party memberships than BC cabinet minister David Eby, the only other candidate in the race who was supported by the NDP establishment.  She brought back alienated former supporters while energizing new supporters from racialized communities.  She tirelessly recruited members, who joined with the expectation that they would be able choose who would lead the party.  By disqualifying Appadurai the party denied those members their democratic right, and damaged relationships with new and returning supporters.  Jagmeet Singh used a similar recruitment approach when he ran for the federal NDP leadership.  The only difference is that Singh was allowed to run, and eventually became leader of the federal NDP, while Appadurai was torpedoed for being too successful in her campaign. 

 

What message does the NDP decision send to young, racialized women in British Columbia?  The answer is that they are welcome in the party as long as they are prepared to be a prop, and they had better not get uppity, or embarrass those who control the party.  At its heart, the decision to terminate Appadurai’s candidacy speaks directly to the issues faced by all racialized Canadians in politics, especially racialized women. 

 

With Appadurai’s disqualification Eby was handed the leadership of the BC NDP on a silver platter.  He was anointed to preserve the power of the party’s white elites, and we know this because his only opponent, a Brown woman who was on track to win, was disqualified on the weakest of pretenses. 

 

It is beyond insulting for the NDP to use racialized women members as fodder to propagandize support from racialized communities. But it seems if those women dare to give voters what they actually want then they had better watch out, because that would threaten those who control the party, something that cannot be permitted. 

 

In today’s Canada it is crucial for young, racialized women to see themselves represented in political leadership roles.  The NDP in BC claims to welcome such women, but in this instance it chose to silence a woman of colour because she dared to challenge the old boys network. NDP supporters and BC voters will not forget this betrayal, and the party will pay a political price when the public realizes that its leaders cannot be trusted to live up to the values it claims to support.

Fareed Khan is the Founder of Canadians United Against Hate / Canadiens Unis Contre la Haine.

Jenn Courtney is the British Columbia Director for Canadians United Against Hate / Canadiens Unis Contre la Haine.

 

© 2022 The View From Here.  © 2022 Fareed Khan.  All Rights Reserved.

 

Election of Pierre Poilievre as Conservative leader means Canada now has its own Trumpist political party headed by a politician who embraces extremism

By Fareed Khan

For the third time in five years the Conservative Party of Canada has elected a new leader.  This time it is Ottawa area MP Pierre Poilievre.  And if his campaign to lead the Conservatives is any indication then his victory poses a potential threat to Canada's democratic and social stability.

Since the start of Poilievre’s leadership campaign there have been repeated dire warnings by political analysts and media voices about the possible danger to Canada of a Poilievre led Conservative Party.  Now that he has won the leadership Canadians need to pay more attention to those warnings.

One columnist called Poilievre "Canada’s most dangerous, appalling politician".  Another who was critical of Poilievre's campaign tactics said that the Conservatives should now be called the "Convoy Party of Canada" given his embrace of that movement. A third media voice was extremely critical of Poilievre as a future prime minister given his association with "dangerous Diagolon extremists”.  While a fourth accused him of using “abusive” and “sexist” language that endangered female journalists, racialized women journalists in particular.

The targeting of racialized and female journalists by some of his supporters is a phenomenon that Poilievre does not seem to take seriously, similar to what happened in the US under Donald Trump when media was labeled as an “enemy of the people”, and his supporters attacked and intimidated reporters who were critical of him.  While Poilievre has not used those exact same words those he has used have motivated extremist, racist and misogynistic elements to target female and racialized journalists with threats of violence when they have portrayed him negatively in their stories.

In addition, these same elements have posted hateful comments on various social media platforms targeting minority communities, including the Jewish, Muslim and LGBTQ2 communities.  Part of Poilievre’s victory can be attributed to support from these fringe elements of society, as did his willingness to welcome convoy protesters, white supremacists, homophobes and transphobes into his tent.  If the reactions to his victory on social media are any indication a majority of Canadians are very unsettled, especially those from many minority communities.

The way that Poilievre ran his leadership campaign, and the fringe element that see him as "their guy", should raise all kinds of red flags for Canadians.  His readiness to appeal to these unsavoury elements in society means that if the next election is won by the Conservatives Canada could see the same sort of societal divisiveness and instability in this country as we saw in the US during the Trump era.

Like the convoy protesters and extremists who supported him Poilievre's leadership poses a threat to Canada’s social and political stability.  More so because the size of his leadership victory means that Tory voters from the far right to centrists decided to vote for him in overwhelming numbers despite warnings about the dangers of his style of politics.  In the end Poilievre received 68 per cent of the vote giving him a decisive win, and a mandate to reshape the party in line with his own far right ideological views, as happened in the Republican Party after Trump became their presidential nominee.  The world saw how that turned out during the January 6th insurrection, so what should Canadians expect given Poilievre’s support for protesters who wanted to overthrow the Canadian government?

The decision made by Conservative voters means Canadians now have a prime minister in waiting who wilfully practices toxic politics, believes in conspiracy theories, is comfortable with extreme right-wing political ideology, and follows a “Trumpist” approach to political campaigning.  If we use the US example under Trump of what to expect in Canada, then a Tory party under Poilievre will cause Canadian politics to become even more polarized and toxic, and this will energize extremists to destabilize Canada’s social and political order. 

With Poilievre’s Conservative leadership victory Canadians need to be ready to experience the kind of politics we have seen in the US during the Trump era.  Poilievre used Trump’s playbook in his campaign and will likely continue to do so in his attempt to become prime minister.  We saw how Trumpism in the US has led to more extremism, more hate, and deep societal divisions.  If we want to avoid the same in Canada then Canadians need to be prepared to fight to preserve the soul of the nation from Poilievre’s Trumpist agenda. 

© 2022 The View From Here.  © 2022 Fareed Khan.  All Rights Reserved.

Gender Equality Report Demonstrates That Much Work Is Still Needed To Achieve True Equality Between Men and Women

If you're seeking a society with the greatest equality between men and women then the top five countries to move to are Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Philippines. This is according to the 2013 Gender Gap Report released last week which is compiled by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Related: 
*  World Gender Gap Index 2013: 

   See How Countries Compare
*  Download the full spreadsheet

It's not surprising that three of the four Scandinavian countries are in the top five, but the inclusion of the Philippines is a surprise.

If you're looking for Canada's ranking in the overall results this country (incredulously) placed 20th behind such "gender equal" and "feminist" oriented societies as Nicaragua, Lesotho, and South Africa.

Looking at the rankings in the four categories one has to question the methodology used to rank the countries overall and if categories were weighted to arrive at the overall results.  For example, Canada placed 1st in Educational Attainment, 9th in Economic Participation and Opportunity, 49th in Health and Survival and 42nd in Political Empowerment.  By comparison the United Kingdom placed 35th, 31st, 92nd and 29th in the respective categories, and the United States placed 6th, 1st, 33rd and 60th respectively.  If you were simply to add the rankings in each category and use the sum total as the final results then you would expect Canada to be ranked well above the U.K. and only slightly behind the Americans.  And yet the U.K. is in 18th place overall, two spots above Canada and the U.S. is ranked 23rd, behind Canada.

One aspect of measuring the rate of gender equality in any nation is to examine the issue of women's safety.  One way to do this is by looking at the rate of occurrence of violence against women, particularly sexual assaults or rapes.  The United Nations annually collects data on rapes compiled from police reports of member states.  According to the most recent statistics available here is how all the countries mentioned above rank for occurrences of rape reported to police.  The rankings are based on data provided by 122 countries and are adjusted for the population of each country.

If these rankings were to be added as a separate category to those used by WEF then the placement of the countries in the list would change considerably.  It's something that the WEF should consider since the ability of women to feel safe and not fear being sexually assaulted by the men they encounter is a factor that uniquely addresses the issue of a "gender gap."

It's unfortunate that something like the Gender Gap Index needs to be calculated.  In the best of worlds education would be equally accessible to both sexes; in the workplace the tasks and roles that women take on would be valued equally to those of men whether it is on the shop floor or in the executive office; there would be no inequality in the provision of health services; the numbers of women sitting in legislative bodies would be representative of their numbers in the general population; women would not fear being sexually assaulted by any of the men they encounter; and society would not have to address issues of sex discrimination and misogyny. 

In some countries the situation of women in one or two of the categories mentioned above is approaching what can be termed equality.  However, what the Gender Gap Report demonstrates most is that in many countries there is still much work to be done to achieve true equality between men and women.  Feminists would assert that equality is necessary because if we are to continue to advance as a society then equality of genders is a prerequisite.  After all, how will our daughters, grand-daughters and other women of future generations judge today’s society if we don't dismantle the barriers which exist to achieving equality for the gender that comprises over 49.6% of the planet's population? 

© F. Khan.  All rights reserved.

Rape Culture: It exists and we as a society have to do something about it

March 19, 2013 -- A girl was raped in the town of Steubenville, Ohio in the US in August 2012 and the media is treating the recent conviction of the teenaged perpetrators of this vicious act with sympaty.  She was victimized again following the rape when pictures circulated online showing the unconscious teenage girl being dragged around to different parties by her rapists who laughed and were encouraged by onlookers who captured a personal memento of the occasion on their cell phones.

The rape lasted for hours with the perpetrators driving the young girl from party to party, raping her, assaulting her, and filming themselves doing so.  

The girl was victimized for a third time when CNN gave sympathetic coverage to the convictions of the rapists.

Related:

Women Under Seige

CNN's Steubenville Rape Coverage Draws Petition Demanding Apology

CNN under fire for sympathetic reporting on ruined 'promising lives' of rape students

And now the girl is being victimized again as she and her family receive death threats via Twitter and Facebook following the conviction of the perpetrators.

This is neither the first time nor will it be the last time (sadly) that a woman is raped and then photos of the incident posted on the internet as some sort of sick memento of the occasion.  Rapes happen everyday in our so called civilized society and many of them go unreported.

Related: 

Rape statistics by country

What this incident (and the many others that go unreported) says is that western society is not evolving when it comes to misogynist and degrading attitudes towards women, especially as it relates to teenagers and young men (and it doesn't matter how young they were, in the eyes of the law they were old enough to know better). At best society is stagnant and at worst it is devolving, and the pervasiveness of modern technology has a part to play in this ([1] [2]). It shows that the veneer of social civility that is trumpeted by western society (i.e. the sort of things that happen in PUT NAME OF DEVELOPING COUNTRY HERE would never happen in PUT NAME OF WESTERN DEVELOPED COUNTRY HERE) is thin as paper and it takes very little for the social contract that permits civilized society to exist to break down. The fact that so called civilized people stood by and let it happen is also an indication of the existence of evil in society that goes willfully ignored or unnoticed.

Our society is sick and it is getting sicker because of the neanderthal attitudes about the place of women in society that continue to be pervasive despite decades of efforts to change these attitudes by the thoughtful, progressive and feminist minded. This sort of mindset can be directly linked to actions by right wing governments who cut programs that help and support women, and the conservative minded within society who support and advocate these sorts of government cutbacks. Those cuts are attacks on women and they are indicative of an attitude within a significant segment of society that women should just shut up and deal with this sort of thing privately.

It's an attitude that is wrong!  Rape culture exists and we as a society have to do something to eliminate it.

To do or think otherwise should sicken and anger everyone!

© The View From Here.  All Rights Reserved.