Following Donald Trump’s performance during his September 10 debate with Kamala Harris, there should be only one question in the minds of American voters: Do you want this person to have possession of the nuclear release codes?
The farther away Americans move from the putative end of the Cold War, and from knowledge and understanding of what it means to serve in the military, the less they understand about how central this question is to our national security and our very existence. The thought that an unstable individual with zero comprehension of nuclear weapons and zero impulse control could order a first strike should strike fear in the hearts of us all.
Among the myriad of reasons why Trump is unfit to be President, this one stands out.
In Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg’s new book, On Heroism: McCain, Milley, Mattis, and the Cowardice of Donald Trump, describes a military establishment deeply concerned about what an immoral, incompetent, cognitively impaired commander-in-chief with no understanding of the global implications of deploying nuclear weapons might unleash. The presupposition had always been that the President of the United States would invariably be a stable individual with a deep respect for the office and its accompanying weighty responsibilities. In Trump, the top generals and admirals were faced with a person who was the exact opposite.
As the post-2020 election interregnum hurtled toward the January 20, 2021 transfer of power, they agonized over how to constrain Trump if, in his desperation to cling to power, he might launch World War III. His January 6 attempted coup d’état put them into panic mode.
There is a reason so many former Trump administration and other top military commanders have gone public with their concerns about what he might do if re-elected. Their fears of what a second Trump term could mean for our national security should make every American worried.
Kamala Harris demonstrated decisively that she possesses the qualities and character essential to serving as Commander-in Chief. The contrast with her opponent could not have been starker. Her beat down of Trump was epic. It was a surgical vivisection. And all he could counter with were 33 lies, including: ridiculous racist claims that migrants were eating our pets (an upgrade, I suppose, over many Republicans’ prior assertion that Democrats were munching on the children they were sex trafficking); that Viktor Orban, the anti-Semitic Hungarian strongman who favors him is “one of the most respected men” (he is reviled by the vast majority of world leaders); that Russia was justified in invading Ukraine; that Israel will no longer exist if Harris is elected; that he had no responsibility for January 6; and that Democrats want to execute babies.
Just because he is a pathetic, craven liar does not mean he isn’t dangerous. Hopefully, the debate will sway enough undecided voters to do the right thing and keep him as far away from the nuclear codes as possible.
Dick Hermann
September 13, 2024
The farther away Americans move from the putative end of the Cold War, and from knowledge and understanding of what it means to serve in the military, the less they understand about how central this question is to our national security and our very existence. The thought that an unstable individual with zero comprehension of nuclear weapons and zero impulse control could order a first strike should strike fear in the hearts of us all.
Among the myriad of reasons why Trump is unfit to be President, this one stands out.
In Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg’s new book, On Heroism: McCain, Milley, Mattis, and the Cowardice of Donald Trump, describes a military establishment deeply concerned about what an immoral, incompetent, cognitively impaired commander-in-chief with no understanding of the global implications of deploying nuclear weapons might unleash. The presupposition had always been that the President of the United States would invariably be a stable individual with a deep respect for the office and its accompanying weighty responsibilities. In Trump, the top generals and admirals were faced with a person who was the exact opposite.
As the post-2020 election interregnum hurtled toward the January 20, 2021 transfer of power, they agonized over how to constrain Trump if, in his desperation to cling to power, he might launch World War III. His January 6 attempted coup d’état put them into panic mode.
There is a reason so many former Trump administration and other top military commanders have gone public with their concerns about what he might do if re-elected. Their fears of what a second Trump term could mean for our national security should make every American worried.
Kamala Harris demonstrated decisively that she possesses the qualities and character essential to serving as Commander-in Chief. The contrast with her opponent could not have been starker. Her beat down of Trump was epic. It was a surgical vivisection. And all he could counter with were 33 lies, including: ridiculous racist claims that migrants were eating our pets (an upgrade, I suppose, over many Republicans’ prior assertion that Democrats were munching on the children they were sex trafficking); that Viktor Orban, the anti-Semitic Hungarian strongman who favors him is “one of the most respected men” (he is reviled by the vast majority of world leaders); that Russia was justified in invading Ukraine; that Israel will no longer exist if Harris is elected; that he had no responsibility for January 6; and that Democrats want to execute babies.
Just because he is a pathetic, craven liar does not mean he isn’t dangerous. Hopefully, the debate will sway enough undecided voters to do the right thing and keep him as far away from the nuclear codes as possible.
Dick Hermann
September 13, 2024
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