That wasn’t a U.S. president at the UN General Assembly threatening to rain nuclear destruction on the planet, it was a failed preacher with long yellow hair from Nutbucket, Fla., threatening to rain nuclear destruction on the planet, same difference.

Either way, the odds of tens of millions of people dying by the time this enraged addled man leaves office are ballooning. Take it to the limit, Donald Trump! He won’t be able to resist that white mushroom cloud, that final glorious statement.

And what better place to announce it than the UN, where, as he sees it, funny-coloured foreigners soak up American money. Trump gave not a speech, but a sermon. It was so bad it was unholy.

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One hesitates to deride Trump on a cheesy social scale — is that not what made Americans elect him? — but here’s what he had to say about the UN in better times, specifically on Twitter on Oct. 3, 2012. “ “The cheap 12” sq. marble tiles behind speaker at UN always bothered me. I will replace with beautiful large marble slabs if they ask me.”

And here he stands now, President Kitchen Backsplash.

It is difficult to sum up the speech, despite having taken notes while watching on three screens, because the whammos, the bone chips and viscera, came at us faster than they could be wiped away.

He threatened to totally destroy North Korea, I got that bit, but at one point, I stopped and asked my companion, “Sorry, who is going to hell? Did I hear that?”

Apparently I did, and the answer is some portions of the world.

Trump’s cowboy world view is Black Hats vs. White Hats. “If the righteous many don’t confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph,” he said. This was pretty formless but then the list of people and things that he finds objectionable grew long as a serpent’s tail.

It included North Korea and a certain leader he didn’t name, certain countries who don’t pay their UN membership fees — oh, they know who they are — “loser terrorists,” economic migrants, certain countries on the UN Human Rights Council, Cuba, President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, Bashar Assad of Syria, Iran and everyone who sails in and with her, international trade tribunals, bureaucracy, and many more. Saudi Arabia’s great, though.

This is only a shopping list, of course. Huge accretions of grievance lie beneath the mention of trade tribunals, nuclear treaties, and red tape.

And then there was the weird reference to sweet little Japanese girls being kidnapped to work as translators. Apparently someone had told Trump that personalization really grabs an audience. But it’s an American thing. It strikes a false note.

Just as we have never seen Trump laugh, we have never seen him express genuine affection for another human. He shakes his wife’s hand; it’s nice of her to take it.

Trump’s fake personal angle gives Americans the impression they’re going to war over that religion student Otto Warmbier.

There are many matters no one had the courage to explain to Trump, who is not an idiot, he is a box of idiots. For instance, that 2013 Iran treaty was both multilateral and a genuine triumph if the sole aim was to prevent Iran having nuclear weapons.

And then there are minor things. Rocket Man was not a ridiculous Slim Pickens riding an H-bomb to vaporization in Dr. Strangelove, he was a depressed astronaut who missed his wife and kids.

Did no one tell Trump that threats and inaccurate ridicule are the wrong way to approach a madman? On the same day in Danzig in 1939, Hitler told Britain, “One does not send ultimatums to the Germany of today — may London take note!”

This is why you never threaten to spit in your kid’s milk, because you’re going to have to deliver. So now what, Donald? The U.S. will no longer promote democracy, the world is black and white (mostly black) and you’ve basically promised a nuclear war. For the next three years you and the world will not be on speaking terms.

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And this is why you will need the UN, as a note passer. UN, tell Canada we can grow our own softwood. Also hardwood. Yeah, tell them that.

I see “parade” circled in my notes. Yes, Trump is planning a huge military parade in front of the White House for next July 4.

What a Kremlinesque year lies ahead.

hmallick@thestar.ca

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