a lot of republicans are pretty damn stupid and short sighted, including the president.

They aren’t just stupid, many on the right are religiously dedicated to the idea of a judgement day and devastating war between ‘good and evil’. They are convinced ‘God is on their side’. Evangelical Christian fascists have been pushing this for years, it was almost guaranteed to come to direct conflict from the course the US has been on unless there was some kind of intervention long ago.