Watching for Hawking radiation from the White House
Donald Trump, the black hole, is losing it
Donald Trump is self-destructing. I’ve called him a black hole—there is no bottom to his depravity as he keeps getting worse, more outrageous, more racist, more sexist, more everything awful.
But it seems there is an end even for black holes as Hawking radiation ever so slowly bleeds away the matter they contain.[1] And such seems to be happening albeit much more dramatically for the relatively low mass black hole of Donald Trump.
First, his war on migrants was a war on cities, too much even for many who support mass deportation. Second, as the Jeffrey Epstein saga drags on, it is ever more apparent that the Trump administration has something, perhaps a lot, to hide. Third, apparently at Binyamin Netanyahu’s behest, he launched and very much appears to have lost a mostly unwanted war on Iran.[2]
Then he depicted himself as Jesus in an artificial idiocy-generated image and attacked Pope Leo XIV for opposing his war on Iran.[3] When Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni—Trump’s only remaining ally within the European Union—came to the Pope’s defense, Trump turned on her.[4]
There’s no logic to be seen here and it’s little wonder that there is some bipartisan support for invoking the 25thamendment.[5]
The damage to the white Christian nationalist coalition that Trump assembled in his first term from the seven tendencies of conservatism that I had identified in my dissertation[6] may take a while to repair.
First, Trump overstepped on unauthorized migration, sweeping up legal residents and even U.S. citizens. Multiple people have died at the hands of Department of Homeland Security agents. Democrats are holding up funding for the DHS to try to rein in those excesses. The end here will surely be a much less massive deportation than the Trump administration promised, disappointing many authoritarian populists, paleoconservatives, neoconservatives, social conservatives, and traditionalist conservatives. Second, Trump as probable pedophile repulses many people across the board. Third, Trump’s war on Iran was opposed by many white Christian nationalists, including authoritarian populists, paleoconservatives, capitalist libertarians, and—almost certainly—traditionalist conservatives, but supported by neoconservatives for whom Israel—and Netanyahu in particular—can do no wrong.
When Pope Leo condemned the Iran war, he said what a lot of folks wanted to hear (I certainly have no criticism of these words). In criticizing Leo, Trump sounds much more like a sore loser than the winner Trump’s ego demands he be—and isn’t. Indeed, his response to all of these and other setbacks has been to double down, even as it becomes ever more apparent he cannot prevail, reinforcing his developing image as a loser.
Trump seems unable to course correct. I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more Hawking radiation before he leaves office.
[1] Nola Taylor Redd, “The Beginning to the End of the Universe: How black holes die,” Astronomy, January 3, 2026, https://www.astronomy.com/science/the-beginning-to-the-end-of-the-universe-how-black-holes-die/
[2] Jennifer Rubin, “Words & Phrases,” Contrarian, April 14, 2026, https://www.contrariannews.org/p/words-and-phrases-8d1
[3] Christian Paz in Cameron Peters to Today, Explained list, “The problem with AI Trump Jesus,” Vox, April 14, 2026, https://www.vox.com/pages/today-explained-newsletter-signup; Ali Walker, “Pope Leo says Trump won’t silence him as US-Vatican feud erupts over Iran, Politico, April 13, 2026, https://www.politico.eu/article/pope-leo-donald-trump-wont-silence-him-us-vatican-feud-over-iran/
[4] Hannah Roberts, “Trump turns against ‘unacceptable’ Meloni,” Politico, April 14, 2026, https://www.politico.eu/article/trump-turns-against-unacceptable-meloni-says-he-was-wrong-about-her/
[5] Henry Cuellar, “Support for the Removal of Donald J. Trump from Office,” n.d., https://cuellar.house.gov/uploadedfiles/support_for_the_removal_of_donald_j._trump_from_office.pdf
[6] David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126).