“A nation led by an unrestrained megalomaniac faces a perilous fate.” John Johnson II 01/21/26
By John Johnson II
International megalomania is a dangerous syndrome—an obsessive drive for dominance on the world stage fused with a false belief in personal invincibility. History provides unmistakable examples of megalomaniac figures such as Joseph Stalin, Muossilini, and Adolf Hitler. Each pursued imperial greatness at immense cost while sacrificing human life in service of grand ambition. Rather than strengthening society, their pursuits hollowed it from within.
International megalomaniacs are rarely sustained by force alone. They always are charismatic, adept at manipulating perception, weaponizing misinformation, and bending truth into spectacle. Through carefully crafted narratives, they convince ordinary people that their ambitions will provide security, prosperity, and restore national pride. In return, citizens under pressure surrendered their freedoms and moral judgment. Dissent becomes treason. Does this sound familiar?
Modern geopolitics offers contemporary manifestations of this pathology. Vladimir Putin’s war against the sovereign nation of Ukraine illustrates how power-thirst metastasizes into prolonged catastrophe. The loss of thousands of soldiers and civilians and the disruption of global stability have not curbed the ambition, which continues unchecked by humanitarian concerns or international standards.
This history forces a sobering inward reflection. Americans must ask whether similar warning signs have emerged closer to home. Scrutiny of President Donald Trump raises legitimate concern regarding the accumulation and normalization of executive power: public displays of dominance, advocacy for unprecedented military expansion, and deployment of federal forces into cities against the wishes of governors. The engagement in military actions without clear congressional authorization is political insanity. Even when cloaked in rhetoric of law and order, such actions assess constitutional boundaries and recalibrate democratic norms.
International megalomania functions like a deadly plague. It consumes lives by the tens of thousands to satisfy unattainable visions, destabilizes alliances, and risks catastrophic confrontation among global powers. Fantasies of territorial acquisition—whether Greenland, Brazil, Cuba, or Costa Rica—are not strategic necessities, but symptoms of imperial delusion. The ultimate danger lies in miscalculation: a collision of ambitions drawing the United States, China, and Russia toward irreversible crisis.
History’s most damning truth is this: the greatest atrocities were not committed by megalomaniacs alone. They were enabled by millions who believed themselves decent, loyal, and patriotic. Hitler did not destroy Germany by himself. The people followed, defended, and excused him until death and ruin rendered denial impossible.
Empires do not fall because warnings are absent; they fall because warnings remain ignored. Americans possess the advantage of hindsight that previous generations did not. Every precedent receives documentation and all warnings are issued.
If people overlook history today, it will not be due to ignorance, it will be because they decided not to care.
YOU BE THE JUDGE!
“A nation led by an unrestrained megalomaniac faces a perilous fate.” John Johnson II 01/21/26
