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Nukes for The Donald?
If he’s going to lose them anyway because of incoming, or because of viable threat, it’ll be a piece of cake.
Eric Hines
Sit down, George. Let me sing you a little something…
People
People who need political people
Are the politicalest people… in… the… wooooorrrlllddd…..
Trump might be one of the few candidates on either side who would ever even consider using a nuclear weapon. I agree with Bartle that America is better off with a President our enemies fear for that reason.
If Trump was purely impulsive and unreasonable, he would not have been half as successful in his business ventures. If he was as chaotic as his critics claim he is, Trump would have been outmaneuvered and undermined by competitors, board members, and lawyers long ago.
He might be a poor candidate for many reasons. But he’s a man with a plan. Nobody gets to where he is by being all talk.
I certainly wouldn’t trust Christie with the football.
He didn’t care how many little people were collateral damage when that bridge was closed, so long has he could punish a guy who didn’t support him – and the guy was a Democrat! Isn’t it pretty normal for a sitting Democrat mayor to not support the Republican gubernatorial candidate?
He said to hell with all those little people trying to get to work – little people trying to get on their school bus on time – little people trying to take an ambulance ride to the hospital – he had a point to make!
I don’t think he’d care much for the little people vaporized in a nuclear explosion either.
You may say that’s a stretch – I say let’s not find out.
How about the rallying cry of “no more illegal immigration?”
I hate to burst any bubbles around here but Donald Trump really is not a fictional comic book character with big pointy ears, wearing a cowl and a cape, rubber booties and a nifty utility belt. Now, what he does on his own time is really his business. But I’d really rather not know about it.
I just had a mental image of Trump snatching the football from his aide and saying “go long.”
A failed haberdasher with nukes? Crazy talk I tell you!
But my point was that we’ve had a lot of presidents who, at least on paper, would make you run screaming from the idea of giving them nuclear strike capabilities (LBJ in particular makes my skin crawl) but they haven’t nuked anyone yet. I’m not sure you can use that as a justifiable strike against the Donald.
Especially when Joe Biden is number two on the “Should we start World War III?” call list.
To answer a question different from the original questioned posed by Peter, I don’t trust Trump with command of the armed forces, with the authority (as it seems to be interpreted these days) to invade or attack various countries at his whim.
Not because he is crazy. Maybe he isn’t. But because he doesn’t seem to have thought about or read about any of the important global military, political, economic, or social issues of our time. This was one of my main issues with the supposedly brilliant Obama. He never showed me, either before his election or since, that he understands how the world got to be the way it is.
Better trump than the gullible fool that got rolled by Schumer.
Instead of complaining about Trump, perhaps the GOP establishment should figure out what has made him attractive to so many disaffected voters in the first place. Oh, but they’re “low-information voters” per the consultant class, so they don’t matter.
No.
| Well, do we?
No.
| Does the question answer itself, as George Will supposed
Yes
| or is President Trump becoming … thinkable?
No.
Guruforhire
“Better Trump than the gullible fool that got rolled by Schumer.”
Did you read Trump’s immigration policy plan on his campaign website? On it he referred to “Mark Zuckerberg’s personal senator, Marco Rubio.”
Ouch!
Next up for George Will: a column in which he cites 1,000 psychologists and psychiatrists who claim that Barry Goldwater – excuse me, Donald Trump – is not mentally fit to be President.
Do we really want to give nuclear weapons to Donald Trump?
No.
Instead of complaining about Trump, perhaps the GOP establishment should figure out what has made him attractive to so many disaffected voters in the first place.
I think many have been trying to figure out why otherwise intelligent people are supporting Trump. I have a few friends that are Trump supporters and I am just dumbfounded. No logical argument seems to sway them at this point.
Dave:
A hypothesis I’ve been thinking on.
How many times can you call your loyal dog over, and swat him in the nose with a lightly rolled newspaper, before he stops coming back ?
Maybe it’s This Many.
Can you ever get him to come over, again. Yeah. Will it take treats, or kind words, or toys? Maybe. But if you’re still holding that newspaper, it wont be a quick reunion.
So how is giving the “football” to Trump that may use it worse than giving it to Obama that would never use it against our country’s enemies.
Can we start calling Trump “Beast Mode”?
I’d disagree with this. We’re talking about nuclear weapons. It’s a serious question that should be asked about any candidate. We’re not making a prediction about what the candidate would do by raising the question — we’re questioning whether there is any remote possibility of misjudgment, because the consequences could be unthinkable.
As an exercise, nothing more, name the Democratic candidates for President in the past whose capacity to be Commander in Chief in the nuclear age has ever been questioned by reputable journalists – as Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan were.
The point of the exercise is to see how much you’ve internalized Democratic premises.
Freesmith, are you responding to me? To tell you the truth, when I started that comment I was going to add that a careless attitude towards classified documents should maybe raise red flags. I forgot before I got to the end, but you just reminded me. Certainly that raises questions about her fitness to be commander-in-chief, which is a broader issue.
I have very serious questions about Trump’s fitness to be commander-in-chief, not helped if he really said he learned about foreign policy by “watching the shows.”
I have very serious questions about Bush — not his seriousness so much as the question of how he would deal with his brother’s shadow, unfair though that is. Everything he did would be compared the world over with W., and he and his staff would inevitably be constantly aware of that. I can’t see that being good. If he’d given a confident answer on the Iraq question, it might be a non-issue — but he didn’t.
I have questions about Walker’s readiness to be commander-in-chief — just lack of experience. I think he is up to the job, but the question should be asked. Likewise most of the rest of them.
I admit I haven’t wasted any time evaluating Bernie Sanders.
I dunno. How is it any worse than the “slightly lesser of two evils” choice that the Republicans give us every four years?
Few people are paying attention to the political race now. Those few are seeing 90% of the media focused on Donald Trump. Also, he has latched onto an issue (illegal immigration) that the politicians of both parties have just about ignored the American people on. Byron York’s 8/16 Washington Examiner article, Are Trump’s immigration views out of the mainstream? demonstrates how disconnected Washington is from the rest of the country. I would urge the other republican candidates to read this article before revealing their immigration policy.
My bloody link doesn’t appear to be working. You can still find the article on Washington Examiner.
Now Leigh, you know that is not what this post was about. And that is not what my comment is about. People want to confuse Trump’s shtick and campaign rhetoric with his judgement and actions if he becomes president. My point, repeat, there is nothing he has done in the past to warrant such a question.
I find his thin skinned reactions to every criticism, from everyone no matter how insignificant, to be something that he has done that throws his judgment into question. I find his reversals on the most important issues of our time (abortion, immigration, guns, taxes) to be a sign of political opportunism. I find his inattention to detail regarding the positions he holds a sign that he is not a serious person.
Agreed.
Also, no reason to deny him the presidency on the grounds of keeping the key to the nukes away from him.
Maybe I’m thinking like a woman used to looking out for myself here. If I’m about to put myself in someone’s power in any way, they have to have earned my trust. If I have a bad feeling about someone for any reason, telling me the guy hasn’t done anything so irresponsible/creepy/whatever as to earn my distrust isn’t going to cut it. This is my safety. I don’t have to be fair.
The Presidency is the same way: we’re giving the guy power over us — and others — in a big way.
If you mean Peter’s implying that Trump would lightly launch nukes on impulse, I’d agree that there’s no evidence. That’s not my concern — it’s whether the candidate is well-equipped to handle the kind of high-pressure high-stakes situations in which a decision may need to be made.
I’d say those things you cited are relevant, as are his willingness to approach high-stakes decisions like the debates unprepared. His overconfidence seems to be real, not just rhetoric.