Trump Isn’t Embarrassing Himself. He’s Embarrassing America.

He drags America onto the world stage, shouts like a carnival barker, and dares anyone to call him out. Too often, no one does.

Illustration by Abdelafatah Mukhtar

Every time I see a headline or a YouTube video that says, “Trump embarrasses himself by…” it irks me a little. Not because Trump doesn’t make a fool of himself — he always does — but because is it even possible for him to get embarrassed? Embarrassment requires self-awareness. It requires an understanding of social standards, the recognition that you’ve fallen short of them, and the capacity to cringe at yourself.

Trump doesn’t express any of these traits. He barrels through life like a man who believes the world is his open mic, and the crowd is obligated to applaud no matter how stale the jokes are. Embarrassment implies an internal governor that makes you stop and think, “Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have said that.” Trump is missing that chip. He is an indictment on the United States of America, and not just as a president but as a mirror of the worst parts of us — anti-intellectualism, cruelty as entertainment, and the delusion that bluster equals brilliance.

This isn’t new. Trump didn’t stumble out of a Manhattan boardroom and single-handedly infect the body politic. He’s the culmination of a Republican trajectory that’s been barreling downhill since at least Jerry Falwell. The conservative movement spent decades feeding resentment while starving critical thought. By the time Trump came along, the appetite for spectacle was so great that actual governing became optional. And because people confuse volume with vision, he got the biggest stage of all: the United Nations General Assembly. I watched his entire September 23 speech so you don’t have to, and let me tell you — this was less statesmanship and more bad improv with nuclear weapons.

The first gem was his declaration that other nations are going to hell. That’s not analysis; that’s Shao Kahn from Mortal Kombat mixed with Jimmy Swaggart. If the goal was to sound like a dictator moonlighting as a televangelist, mission accomplished. He said it with the same flourish that Swaggart used to beg for donations, except instead of promising salvation he was predicting damnation. Imagine sitting in that room as a world leader and hearing the U.S. president channel both an arcade boss fight and a disgraced preacher. That’s not foreign policy—it’s fan fiction written by a crank.

Then came his insistence that climate change is a hoax. This is where roasting almost feels too easy, because it’s not just dumb — it’s dangerous. Trump is proof of how far the Republican Party has fallen. I would never call George W. Bush a champion for climate action, but even Bush had the baseline sense to acknowledge that climate change exists. In 2007, Republicans might downplay it, minimize it, or offer half-measures, but at least we were starting with a baseline of truth. Fast-forward to Trump, and the baseline is obliterated. He tells the world’s top scientific body that the greatest environmental challenge of our time is a scam. What’s so tragic is that millions of Americans nod along, convinced that his bluster trumps decades of research.

That’s the real problem — America has legitimized garbage. We treat nonsense as if it deserves debate. I used to dismiss Charlie Kirk because he had no actual debate skills, just a knack for the Gish gallop. He would unload so many half-truths and outright lies that by the time you fact-checked the first claim, he was three outrageous statements ahead. When he once said he worries if a Black pilot is qualified, the correct response was, “Shut the fuck up.” Instead, pundits argued we should at least hear him out, as if racist dog whistles belong in the same conversation as intellectual arguments. That’s the same courtesy Trump gets. He throws out debunked pseudoscience and the media bends over backward to say, “Well, let’s listen to his side.” No — the man is peddling horseshit, and giving it legitimacy just pulls the whole country farther down the intellectual sewer.

Even people I respect sometimes give him too much credit. Michael Moore once said Trump isn’t a stupid man. I get why Moore said it — he was trying to warn liberals not to underestimate him — but the unintended effect was that people started assuming Trump is smart. Let’s be clear: He’s not smart. He’s diabolical, sure. He’s duplicitous, absolutely. But intellect requires discipline, curiosity, and the ability to absorb information that contradicts your priors. Trump doesn’t do that. His only real talent is intimidating large swaths of people into abandoning their critical thinking skills and falling in line with his act. The more educated members of his cabinet never challenged him, the Republicans in Congress never restrained him, and so the man who confuses insult comedy with policy keeps getting treated like he’s playing 3-D chess when in reality he’s just shoving pieces off the board.

Take his constant whining about the Nobel Prize. In the speech, he once again suggested he deserves one. And maybe he does — if the Nobel Committee starts handing out awards for convincing a quarter of the U.S. population to believe nonsense against their better judgment. That alone is a historic achievement in gaslighting. He has weaponized gullibility into a political movement, and instead of being laughed out of the room, he has people sincerely arguing that he’s some misunderstood genius. If there were a Nobel in Alternative Facts, he’d have a trophy case by now.

Then there was his tough-guy promise to drug smugglers: “We will blow you out of existence.” That line belongs in a Batman comic, not a presidential address. The problem is it doesn’t even make sense in practice. You can’t bomb cocaine. You can’t send a cruise missile after fentanyl. The drug trade is a web of economics, poverty, corruption, and demand. It’s not Skeletor hiding in a lair waiting to be “blown out of existence.” Trump’s threats sound strong to people who prefer Hollywood solutions, but anyone with a shred of policy knowledge knows it’s all theater. He reduces complex crises to action-movie dialogue, and millions of people cheer because they mistake chest-thumping for competence.

And then came my personal favorite: his claim that America is “the hottest country anywhere in the world.” If he meant it literally, he’s wrong; if he meant it figuratively, he’s delusional. The only way it makes sense is if he accidentally admitted that climate change is real — which, of course, he doesn’t believe. So we’re left with another nonsensical brag, the geopolitical equivalent of “my dad can beat up your dad.” Meanwhile, as of September 25, 2025, the actual data shows inflation cooling but still a drag, recession risks looming, and global competitiveness shifting. That’s reality. Trump’s “hottest country” flex is nothing but bravado.

The through line in all of this is that Trump is not embarrassed because he can’t be. He doesn’t measure himself against social standards; he redefines them downward until anything he says, no matter how absurd, becomes the new baseline. And that’s the real indictment: he is not some anomaly but a reflection of what the United States has tolerated, encouraged, and in many ways celebrated. For decades, Republicans nurtured anti-intellectualism, from Falwell’s pulpit to Fox News’ prime time. They taught voters that expertise is elitism, that science is conspiracy, and that cruelty is honesty. Trump is just the ugliest blossom of a poisoned tree.

What makes it worse is the complicity of people who know better. Educated Republicans in the House and Senate who roll their eyes privately but fall in line publicly. Cabinet members who tell reporters off the record that Trump is unfit but never say it when it matters. Media outlets that frame his nonsense as just another side of the debate. Every time we act like his word salad deserves parsing, we move the goalposts of seriousness. It’s why I can joke about his U.N. address being indistinguishable from bad improv, but I also know that millions of people took him at face value. That’s the tragedy: Not just that he speaks nonsense, but that the nation keeps pretending it’s worth hearing.

So no, Trump doesn’t embarrass himself. Embarrassment requires the ability to cringe at your own reflection. What he does is humiliate us collectively. He drags America onto the world stage, shouts like a carnival barker, and dares anyone to call him out. Too often, no one does. He is the indictment. He represents not our best but our worst, not just as Americans but as humans who have allowed willful ignorance to masquerade as strength. And if that doesn’t embarrass us, then maybe the problem isn’t that Trump lacks self-awareness — it’s that we lack the decency to feel any. After all, how can a man who’s never once been embarrassed teach a country that’s forgotten how?

Kristoffer Ealy is a political science professor who teaches at California State University Fullerton, Ventura College, Los Angeles Harbor College, and Oxnard College. He is the author of the upcoming book, Political Illiteracy: Learning the Wrong Lessons.

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