NOW TOO MUCH FOR US: Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great oh my!

TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2026

The megalomania files: People believe the darnedest things! Or at least, some people seem to.

For today, let's start with Genghis Khan, who is often said to have "united the tribes."

We Americans—or perhaps, we former Americans—currently have a bit of a problem with disunity among our own tribes. Red and Blue are the most famous designations, though these largest of our tribes tribes might also be known as MAGA and NeverTrump.

If only someone knew how to unite those tribes! So how did Genghis Khan manage to do it? In part, the leading authority on his somewhat murky life says he had a somewhat strange idea:

Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan (c. 1162 – August 1227), also known as Chinggis Khan, was the founder and first khan of the Mongol Empire. After spending most of his life uniting the Mongol tribes, he launched a series of military campaigns, conquering large parts of China and Central Asia.

Born between 1155 and 1167 and given the name Temüjin, he was the eldest child of Yesugei, a Mongol chieftain of the Borjigin clan, and his wife Hö'elün. When Temüjin was eight, his father died and his family was abandoned by its tribe. Reduced to near-poverty, Temüjin killed his older half-brother to secure his familial position. His charismatic personality helped to attract his first followers and to form alliances with two prominent steppe leaders...

And so on from there. 

On occasion, uniting the tribes can be a bit messy. Later in the overview, here comes that darnedest idea:

Genghis Khan remains a controversial figure. He was generous and intensely loyal to his followers, but ruthless towards his enemies. He welcomed advice from diverse sources in his quest for world domination, for which he believed the shamanic supreme deity Tengri had destined him. The Mongol army under Genghis killed millions of people, yet his conquests also facilitated unprecedented commercial and cultural exchange over a vast geographical area. He is remembered as a backwards, savage tyrant in Russia and the Arab world, while recent Western scholarship has begun to reassess its previous view of him as a barbarian warlord.

His army killed millions of people. But Western scholarship has begun to reassess its previous view of him as a barbarian? 

We don't know why that would be true—but as far as his ability to unite the tribes, he was apparently helped along by this strange idea:

He believed the shamanic supreme deity Tengri had destined him for world domination.

Genghis Khan believed the darnedest things, at least in that one instance.

Finding a way to unite the tribes can be a wonderful thing. That said, uniting the tribes (then moving on to conquer the world) can also be very messy.

For the record, Genghis Khan wasn't exactly one of a kind. Within the past year, we've also cited Alexander the Great, of whom it's frequently said, almost surely apocryphally, that he wept when he realized he had no more worlds to conquer.

He may have believed some peculiar things. Long before Genghis Khan came along, the story starts like this:

Alexander the Great

Alexander III of Macedon (356 BC – 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to the throne in 336 BC at the age of 20, and spent most of his regency conducting a lengthy military campaign throughout parts of Asia and Egypt. By the age of 30, he had created one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Greece to northwestern India. He was undefeated in battle and is widely considered to be one of history's greatest and most successful military commanders.

Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16. In 335 BC, shortly after assuming the throne of Macedon, he launched a campaign in the Balkans and reasserted control over Thrace and parts of Illyria before marching on the city of Thebes, which was subsequently destroyed in battle...

And so on from there. 

Did he really weep in the manner alleged? Probably not, but here's how the grand adventure began:

In the 24th day of the Macedonian month Dios, which probably corresponds to 25 October 336 BC, while attending the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra to Olympias's brother, Alexander I of Epirus, Philip was assassinated by the captain of his bodyguards, Pausanias, who, according to Diodorus, was also his lover. As Pausanias tried to escape, he tripped over a vine and was killed by his pursuers, including two of Alexander's companions, Perdiccas and Leonnatus. Alexander was proclaimed king on the spot by the nobles and army at the age of 20.

Alexander began his reign by eliminating potential rivals to the throne. He had his cousin, the former Amyntas IV, executed. He also had two Macedonian princes from the region of Lyncestis killed for having been involved in his father's assassination, but spared a third, Alexander Lyncestes. Olympias had Cleopatra Eurydice, and Europa, her daughter by Philip, burned alive. When Alexander learned about this, he was furious. Alexander also ordered the murder of Attalus, who was in command of the advance guard of the army in Asia Minor and Cleopatra's uncle.

As Candidate Trump proclaimed in 2015, Putin isn't the only one who engages in this sort of thing!

By the time he was 30, Alexander had created one of the largest empires in history. (He died at age 32.)

Whatever had made him think that he could accomplish such a thing?  He may have believed the darnedest things! The leading authority explains:

Both of Alexander's parents encouraged his ambitions. His father Philip was probably Alexander's most immediate and influential role model, as the young Alexander watched him campaign practically every year, winning victory after victory while ignoring severe wounds. Alexander's relationship with his father "forged" the competitive side of his personality; he had a need to outdo his father, illustrated by his reckless behavior in battle. While Alexander worried that his father would leave him "no great or brilliant achievement to be displayed to the world," he also downplayed his father's achievements to his companions. Alexander's mother Olympias similarly had huge ambitions, and encouraged her son to believe it was his destiny to conquer the Persian Empire. She instilled a sense of destiny in him, and Plutarch tells how his ambition "kept his spirit serious and lofty in advance of his years."

[...]

During his final years, Alexander began to exhibit signs of megalomania and paranoia. His extraordinary achievements, coupled with his own ineffable sense of destiny and the flattery of his companions, may have combined to produce this effect. His delusions of grandeur are readily visible in his will and in his desire to conquer the world, in as much as he is by various sources described as having boundless ambition, an epithet, the meaning of which has descended into a historical cliché.

He appears to have believed himself a deity, or at least sought to deify himself. Olympias always insisted to him that he was the son of Zeus, an idea apparently confirmed to him by the oracle of Amun at Siwa. He began to identify himself as the son of Zeus-Ammon. 

He began to identify himself as the son of Zeus-Ammon? As noted, people believe the darnedest things, or at least some people do.

At any rate, some contemporary medical terms begin to appear in that capsule account. That includes megalomania, which we think we've discussed in the past:

Megalomania

Megalomania is an extreme obsession with power and self-importance, often involving exaggerated or delusional beliefs about one's abilities or status. People with megalomania have delusional fantasies that they are more relevant (important) or powerful than they truly are. They have inflated self-esteem and overestimate their powers and beliefs. People with megalomania tend to exhibit a disposition that is less inclined towards humbleness.

The word "megalomania" is no longer used in the mental health field, and is not mentioned in either the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or the International Statistical Classification of Diseases (ICD). Instead, this condition is now called narcissistic personality disorder. 

Tragically, this may start to sound like someone we all know. In a major best-seller in 2020, his niece spelled it out like this, as we've noted before:

MARY L. TRUMP, PH.D. (pages 12-13): I have no problem calling Donald a narcissist—he meets all nine criteria as outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)—but the label only gets us so far.

[...]

A case could be made that he also meets the criteria for antisocial personality disorder, which in its most severe forms is generally considered sociopathy but can also refer to chronic criminality, arrogance, and disregard for the rights of others...

The fact is, Donald’s pathologies are so complex and his behaviors so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neuropsychological tests that he’ll never sit for.

That was the niece's assessment. Over here in Blue America, our elites have agreed, almost to a person, that these assessments must never be discussed. 

We Blues have occasionally offered comparisons to Adolf Hitler, who—to be fair—seemed to be delusional enough to think that he was creating "a thousand-year Reich." 

In our view, our current Red America is largely in thrall to various forms of madness (colloquial and diagnostic). In our view, the colloquial madness is general over the Red American leadership caste, but the clinical "mental disorder" may be widespread too.

That's how Red America's major caste looks to us. All in all, we'd say that Red America's journalism is largely performed on a D-minus level. 

Over here, in Blue America, we'd award our journalists and opinion leaders a far better C-minus grade.

At present, President Trump seems to believe quite a few of the darnedest things. We can't help thinking of certain famous predecessors as he generates headlines like these:

Maggie Haberman Offers Grim Warning About Trump: ‘He Is Emboldened in a Way I Don’t Think We’ve Ever Seen Before’
For full report, click here

Trump Promises to ‘Do Something on Greenland’: ‘Whether They Like It Or Not’
For full report, click here

Trump Tells NY Times the Only Limit On His Power is His ‘Own Morality’: ‘I Don’t Need International Law’
For full report, click here

‘I Should Have’: Trump Says He Regrets Not Seizing Voting Machines In 2020 To Overturn Election
For full report, click here

He regrets not seizing the voting machines! Greenland, here we come!

Medical issues like the ones Mary Trump describes are always a human tragedy. We'll suggest that people who are "mentally ill" (outmoded term) probably didn't choose to be mentally ill.

Medical issues like these are a tragedy, but they can also be dangerous. In the current instance, these apparent issues have helped create a world which almost seems to have become "now too much for us." 

We'd give Fox & Them a D-minus grade for the way they've dealt with this state of affairs. Over here in Lake Wobegon, have our own Blue American message-framers really been that much better?

Tomorrow: What Charlie Hurt actually said!