Rabaa Massacre: “I think it’s great.”

Trump’s psychology is unspooling. His opposition needs to reorient itself.

The scenes today in the Middle East were gut-wrenching. Israeli hostages were reunited with their families after two years in captivity, providing a sense of joy and relief to many. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are making their way by foot back to their devastated neighborhoods—and the rubble they once called home. And Donald Trump used the opportunity to take a victory lap as the “peace president.”

At what price did the “peace” Trump is touting come? What are the ramifications? And who is he dealing with? After an hour-plus rant at the Knesset where he called for Bibi Netanyahu to be pardoned, Trump traveled to Sharm Al-Sheikh, Egypt—to sign a “ceasefire deal” on Gaza with the dictators of Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar.

“He puts it out very quickly.”

Trump took the time in his press conference to praise Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for his “crime situation”:

“This country is doing very well. It has good leadership. It’s about leadership. And it’s really nice when you say, “how is your crime situation?” And they don’t even know what you’re talking about. What do you mean, crime? We don’t have crime. Because if he has crime, he puts it out very quickly. Some people think that’s not nice, but I think it’s great. Because people don’t want to be mugged and smashed. And they don’t want to be stupid people. They have a place that is doing very well. We’re very proud of them.“

When Trump says “puts it out very quickly,” he is referring to a specific series of massacres that took place under el-Sisi’s leadership.

After the Arab Spring in 2011, Egypt had its first true democratic elections in 2012. President Mohammed Morsi faced a number of serious problems, and in July 2013 el-Sisi, then Morsi’s defense minister, led a military coup d’état that toppled the democratic government and installed a junta. This led to mass protests and huge sit-ins in Cairo (Rabaa Square) and Giza (al-Nahda Square).

Rabaa Massacre

On August 14th, 2013, el-Sisi’s military and the police violently “dispersed” the two squares; using bulldozers, snipers, and Apache helicopters. Armed forces murdered over 800 people on that one day.

This report is disturbing, but crucial to understand in light of Trump’s comments. The trauma of the events of that day, as described by these witnesses, was a “shockwave” that oppressed the people of Egypt and drove any opposition to the regime underground. According to Human Rights Watch, it was “All According to Plan.” El-Sisi’s regime had predicted thousands of deaths.

The new Egyptian order was crystallized by this trauma. It was mass terror as a warning to the opposition. There was never accountability for this “crime against humanity” and el-Sisi built a regime of oppression around it, normalizing state terror as justifiable.

In 2014, el-Sisi was elected in a sham proceeding with 97% of the vote. In 2023, after changing Egypt’s constitution to extend term limits, el-Sisi was elected to a third six-year term, with nearly 90% of the vote.

The Egyptian model is quite similar to what Donald Trump and Stephen Miller are attempting to build in America—a surveillance-carceral-epistemic state, enforced through violence, operated through the shell of a hollowed-out democracy.

How It Happened: Why America Mirrors Donald Trump

The Mukhabarat, or General Intelligence Services of Egypt, are a vertically-integrated combined paramilitary and intelligence apparatus that answers to el-Sisi alone. Egyptians have internalized the idea that they are constantly under surveillance, that dissent is not allowed, and that violence or death is the punishment for opposition. Tens of thousands of people have been imprisoned. Hundreds have been disappeared to be tortured or executed.

“This silence has been bought with the blood of thousands. Every time the state kills, it builds another wall between us and freedom.”

— Alaa Abdel Fattah, You Have Not Yet Been Defeated (2021)

El-Sisi also seized control of television and media: the Mukhabarat controls what information is transmitted to the Egyptian people, who live in a version of epistemological totalitarianism—where the state controls the means of knowledge.

The War on Knowing

Like many other dictatorships, el-Sisi operates under the concept Nazi philosopher Carl Schmitt called the “state of exception” or state of emergency. The Egyptian parliament is ornamental and the rule of law is essentially obsolete. El-Sisi has enacted a number of laws that give him the ability to punish speech which is deemed “insulting to the state” or “spreading false information.” These include “Law 94 on Confronting Terrorism” and the “Terrorist Entities Law,” both enacted in 2015.

Per the law, a terrorist is anyone “who led, managed, established, was a member of, or provided information or support” to a terrorist entity; a terrorist entity is “every association, organization, group, or gang” that uses violence; incites fear; puts the lives or rights of individuals at threat; violates national unity; harms the environment or the country’s natural resources; seizes or occupies public or private property; impedes the work of public officials, government bodies, homes of worship, hospitals, institutions, scientific entities, or diplomatic missions; blocks public or private transportation; endangers social peace; or impedes the application of the country’s constitution and laws.

Following the designation of a terrorist or terrorist entity, the law authorizes “competent state bodies”—a term that is left undefined by the law—to dissolve the entity, bring to a halt its operations, close its buildings, ban its meetings and membership, stop its financial activities, freeze its property and assets, and temporarily deprive the individual or entity of their political rights.

—Egypt, “Terrorist Entities Law” (2015)

This language is disturbingly similar to what the Trump regime has already put in place in “Designating Antifa as a Terrorist Organization” and NSPM-7 “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.“

There are common recurrent motivations and indicia uniting this pattern of violent and terroristic activities under the umbrella of self-described “anti-fascism.” … This “anti-fascist” lie has become the organizing rallying cry used by domestic terrorists to wage a violent assault against democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental American liberties. Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality. […]

The United States requires a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts. Through this comprehensive strategy, law enforcement will disband and uproot networks, entities, and organizations that promote organized violence, violent intimidation, conspiracies against rights, and other efforts to disrupt the functioning of a democratic society.

—White House, NSPM-7 (2025)

No Limits

Trump’s geopolitical grandstanding and rhetoric comes at a time when his psychology has deteriorated to open acknowledgement—and celebration—of his own literal evil. On the plane to the Middle East, Trump said:

“I don’t think there’s anything going to get me in Heaven. I really don’t. I think I’m not maybe heavenbound.”

And in Egypt, Trump said this about Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan:

“I think he’s an amazing leader and another man who’s been a friend of mine for a long time. I don’t know what it is. I like the tough people better than I like the soft, easy ones. I don’t know what now that is. It’s a personality problem, I suspect. But this gentleman from a place called Turkey has one of the most powerful armies, actually in the world. It’s much more powerful than he even lets known.“

The “personality problem” Trump seems to be coming to grips with is messianic malignant narcissism, or the Dark Tetrad—a combination of narcissism, psychopathy, machiavellianism, and sadism.

How the Dark Tetrad Captured America

This condition is made even more dangerous when the personality in question is under high-intensity stress through wounds to its ego—for example, because of Epstein and other failures. This creates a spiral called narcissistic collapse in which the narcissist tries to alter reality around him to soothe his psychological injuries. In this state, there are virtually no limits on what they will do.

No Pharaohs

The “No Kings” protests planned for this coming weekend are already deeply injurious to Donald Trump’s ego. His regime is attacking the millions who will participate as “Antifa,” “pro-Hamas,” and “Marxist”—while his media apparatus paints peaceful protests in Chicago and Portland as violent. Donald Trump clearly wants a Rabaa massacre.

However, the United States is not Egypt, yet. Donald Trump does not have the kind of control that el-Sisi has over the population, and he does not have a military that will slaughter hundreds of civilians. That’s why everyone who can must participate.

Failing to Coup

The opposition in America, not right or left or independent, but those who simply wish to retain the constitutional republic that we were all entrusted with as citizens, must change its focus from politics to power.

There is a criminal cabal running the U.S. federal government—currently routed through a degenerating psychopath, but not forever. The cabal is setting up the conditions to persecute its opponents and create a one-party state.

Here is the crucial thing we all must grapple with: They will never give up control voluntarily. This is in fact a coup in progress. We’re watching it unfold.

The sooner we reorient towards this reality the better.

When Donald Trump tells the world he admires a government that is most famous for the largest massacre of protesters in modern world history, we should believe him. We should take it as a sign of what’s to come if we do what we’ve always done and accept it, normalize it, and allow the Overton Window to shatter.

If you have ever wondered “What would I have done?” now you know.

March; protest; get in good trouble. Right now.

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”

—JFK paraphrasing Dante Alighieri, Inferno (Canto III)

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