1) It can’t happen. The Roman Empire can’t fall. The Soviet Union can’t disintegrate. Nazis can’t rearm. The Titanic can’t sink. Humanity has long blinded itself to reality with the words “It can’t happen.” Each time we've been taught it can.
A nuclear war CAN happen. And....
A nuclear war CAN happen. And....
2)...we now have a man in control of the world's largest nuclear arsenal who threatens an enemy nuclear power simply because he saw some commentary on @FoxNews that triggered his madness. We as a nation have come to start ignoring Trump and his megalomaniacal tweets as nothing...
3)...more than amusing and disturbing ravings. He makes them, we react in horror, and then he says another. Overseas, though, they don't have the luxury of believing he has a limit. They say out loud what politicians here will not: The United States is led by a man who....
4)...suffers from a mental illness or a severe paranoid personality disorder. They don't have the comfort - and some of them don't have the smarts - to move on to the next tweet. Last night, the President of the United States threatened, without rational provocation, a nuclear...
5)...power with the possibility that he might detonate a hydrogen bomb over their country. Imagine for a moment that Presidents Xi or Putin had sent that same tweet, directed at us. Would we have laughed it off? Would we have said, "oh, that silly man." No. We would have gone...
6) ...to DEFCON 2, possibly DEFCON 1. When Reagan accidentally made a bombing joke over what he thought was a dead mike, the Soviet Union went on military alert. This was not some accident, where Trump thought people in the room with him would laugh at his "joke." This was....
7)...a public threat, one leveled Kim Jong Un, an insecure, egomaniacal, unstable tyrant who also happens to have the power to destroy the world. For what purpose? Threaten a nuclear nation with nukes, they don't back down. If they do, they are at risk of losing their nuclear...
8.) ...arsenal based on nothing but "It can't happen." If a nuclear power believes it is at risk of a strike, nuclear strategy dictates you strike first, to take out as much of the other power's arsenal as possible before it is shot at you. And our President believes this....
9)...global tipping point, which can be reached in a second, is meaningless? That, to gain more social media followers or brag or satisfy the maniacs at @FoxNews, it is worth destabilizing the nuclear world in a moment that could ultimately lead to a first strike? This.....
10.) ....is insanity, an insanity we are tolerating because the GOP wants tax cuts. The sane conservatives know the danger, but stay mute publicly. The craven run onto cable television, blathering on in defense of the indefensible, as if a nuclear power is....
11)...sitting overseas saying, "Oh, yes, I will make strategic decisions about my national security based on what some huckster vomits out on the air, someone who defends anything and everything." And then we have Pakistan, a critical and complex ally that is fighting....
12)...internally between the pragmatists and the jihadists. With a small shove, the jihadists could gain control of Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal. Bush handled that complexity with skill. Obama did well, but had the complexity of having raided the country....
13)...to kill bin Laden. Even around that, he wasn't quite as good as Bush at managing the tipping point, but he was still superb. As for Trump? Because he saw something on @FoxNews, he tweets out an attack on the Pakistani govnt, the pragmatists who are....
14)...fighting this tipping point against a fundamentalist faction being led by their own security services. Trump gives a push, having no concept that Pakistan is not just India with different food. Where does that leave us? Primarily, we have to get off of our arrogant....
15)...belief that somehow all other nations think like us, and see their own national security through the demands of ours. We have to stop pretending that, if we were threatened by another nuclear power, we would chuckle and ignore it. But we also have to recognize...
16)...another reality. There are a large group of Trump supporters who are unreachable. They are a cult. They cannot see reality for what it is. There are vast psychological studies on the need to reinforce decisions and seeking out information that confirms your.....
17)...original action was correct. Others of them think that having a president who threatens nations as if he was prompting a bar fight is manly or tough. They are not worth debating. They do not know enough nor do they care to learn. There are many other Trump supporters....
18)...who have come to realize that the President poses a clear and present danger to the United States. There are media outlets who, to gain a little more in advertising dollars, would set the world aflame. They must be ignored as well.....
19)...which leaves us with the never-Trumpers, the awakened Trumpers, the sane GOPrs who have no spine, and the opponents of Trump. Are tax cuts really worth this? Is a wall that will never happen really worth this? We have to finally face that we are not....
20)...Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. We are Americans, and we are all standing in a basement filled with gasoline, watching a man on the other side of the room playing with matches. Enough of the petty, stupid....
21)...hatreds. I admire many small-government conservatives. I admire many progressives. I admire many moderates, both on the left and right. We have different philosophies of government. That is all. This doesn't make the other evil. We have to recognize, we share....
22)...far more in our values than we have differences. But the spineless and the silent must finally step forward and say, a man who threatens nuclear powers for no reason, a man who takes credit for domestic airliners not crashing, a man who sees vast conspiracies of....
23)...secret cabals organized against him, a man who imagines he is wiretapped, is not a well person. We have grown accustomed to hearing, "This is not normal." No, it is worse. This is not safe.
Don't comfort yourself with the age old words, "It can't happen."
It can.
Don't comfort yourself with the age old words, "It can't happen."
It can.
