In Donald Trump’s hands, US military power is starting to look to many Americans the way it is already seen by people around the world: as a terrifying instrument of raw, indiscriminate violence. But it’s not, at least solely, an empathy with the victims of our forever war that is driving Americans to grapple with their country’s unparalleled capacity for destruction.

It is fear for their own lives — specifically, the fear of dying in a nuclear war instigated by a notoriously erratic president with world-destroying powers at his fingertips.

These fears of nuclear apocalypse were on full display this week, as three full days of nuclear-tinged Trumpisms inspired half-serious jokes about our impending doom across social media. On Tuesday, Trump made his now-infamous comments about unleashing “fire and fury like the world has never seen” against North Korea. On Wednesday, in the preferred presidential medium of Twitter, Trump took credit for modernizing the nuclear arsenal — despite the fact that this process began under Obama and will take thirty years (and $1.2 trillion) to complete. Yesterday, Trump wondered aloud whether his initial comments about the DPRK weren’t “tough enough,” thereby ensuring the apocalyptic fervor continues for yet another news cycle.