Bob Sheak, June 10, 2024

The forthcoming elections in November 2024, particularly the presidential election, may well determine whether American democracy will continue to exist or not. Trump, his Republican Party, along with his allies and followers are the most serious threat to democracy. In my last post, “The Specter of Fascism,” I analyzed the fascist thrust of Trump and the Republican Party.

Trump is the uncontested leader of the Republican Party and dominates the right-wing as a whole. Some, many in his “base,” even view him as a messiah with special spiritual power given him by God. This is an example of how extreme and nonsensical such Trump advocates have become. But, however outlandish, they are prepared to vote for him, give him donations, and, however the 2024 election goes, perhaps heed his call for retribution and violence against his opponents.

Trump’s links to right-wing evangelicals

In an article published in The New York Times, Michael C. Bender analyzes this supposed mystical connection

(https://nytimes.com/2024/04/01/us/politics/trump-2024-religion.html). Here’s some of what Bender writes.

“He is also the latest in a long line of Republican presidents and presidential candidates who have prioritized evangelical voters. But many conservative Christian voters believe Mr. Trump outstripped his predecessors in delivering for them, pointing especially to the conservative majority he installed on the Supreme Court that overturned federal abortion rights.

“Mr. Trump won an overwhelming majority of evangelical voters in his first two presidential races, but few — even among his rally crowds — explicitly compare him to Jesus.

“Instead, the Trumpian flock is more likely to describe him as a modern version of Old Testament heroes like Cyrus or David, morally flawed figures handpicked by God to lead profound missions aimed at achieving overdue justice or resisting existential evil.”

This belief is hardly linked to Trump’s record. Bender notes:

“He has been married three times, has been repeatedly accused of sexual assault, has been convicted of business fraud and has never showed much interest in church services. Last week, days before Easter, he posted on his social media platform an infomercial-style video hawking a $60 Bible that comes with copies of some of the nation’s founding documents and the lyrics to Lee Greenwood’s song ‘God Bless the U.S.A.’”

Nonetheless, he has the support of right-wing evangelicals, probably Trump’s largest constituency. Bender adds the following.

“Even more than in his past campaigns, he is framing his 2024 bid as a fight for Christianity, telling a convention of Christian broadcasters that ‘just like in the battles of the past, we still need the hand of our Lord.’

“On his social media platform in recent months, Mr. Trump has shared a courtroom-style sketch of himself sitting next to Jesus and a video that repeatedly proclaims, ‘God gave us Trump’ to lead the country.

Trump’s fascist vision

He and his Republican Party have plans to create what amounts to a fascist social order, without checks and balances, with extraordinary influence (if not control) over the executive branch, with support from a right-wing Supreme Court, with support from a large swath of corporations, with support of the rich and powerful in general, and with a largely unquestioning and massive grassroots “base.” (See my last post, “The Specter of Fascism,” for additional analysis.)

He pledges to implement massive deportation and detention of undocumented residents and retribution, even death, against his critics.

Trump’s retribution will, he says, include the deportation or detention of over 11 million undocumented immigrants who reside in the country, along with many center/left oriented citizens who have challenged his views and unlawful behavior. If realized, Trump’s re-election would end the rule of law and disregard or replace adherence the U.S. Constitution.

Kindler delves into this issue (https://dailykos.com/stories/2024/5/25/2242703/-What-Deporting-15-Million-People-Would-Actually-Look-Like).  ….

“This time, we sure as hell better take Trump LITERALLY. When he says he intends to do something crazy as president, we need to let every voter out there know what his plans are and what they would mean in real life — to make sure he never gets the opportunity.

“So when a journalist or analyst does a great job delving into all the implications of a stated Trump policy, we need to spread such work far and wide – as I’m doing today with Radley Balko’s superb piece, “Trump’s Deportation Army,” a well-researched effort to calculate what the Trump/Stephen Miller promise to deport 15 million allegedly undocumented immigrants would actually entail.

“The answers Balko comes up with are stunning. Let me start with a few key points (most of which, as he explains in detail, are based on conservative estimates):

“15 million people [is] about the size of the three largest U.S. cities combined — New York, L.A., and Chicago — plus Pittsburgh.”

“The deportation army Miller and Trump want to assemble…would likely exceed the size of the U.S. Army itself.”

“According to the Center for Migration Studies, under Trump’s plan about 5.7 million U.S.-born, U.S. citizen children would lose one or both parents.”

“In 2017, ICE estimated that it cost an average of $10,854 to deport one person, or about $14,000 in today’s dollars. Under this calculation, Trump’s plan to deport 15 million people would cost about $210 billion, or about 14 percent more than the annual budget of the U.S. Army.”

“As of January, federal immigration courts were already working with a backlog of 3 million cases. Adding millions more cases would likely grind the system to a halt.”

“In short, Trump and his cheerleaders are promising us an unimaginably disruptive, devastating, expensive, resource-intensive and epically cruel operation, which would impact people in every corner of the country and leave the kinds of wounds in our society and across the world that may never heal.”

The logistics

“Trump’s deportation plan would mean identifying the undocumented people in virtually every decent sized city, town, and county in the United States, detaining those people in some regional facility, transporting them to a bus station or airport, then flying, walking, or driving them across the border.” […]

“Imagine the number of buses and [planes] you’d need, the number of holding facilities, and everything you’d need to staff and equip those facilities. You’d need security. You’d need medical staff and food services. You’d need bathroom and shower facilities. You’d need janitorial staff, bus drivers, and pilots.”

Kindler continues.

Stephen Miller is a proponent of this catastrophic vision. Here’s his synopsis.

“So you build these facilities where then you’re able to say, you know, hypothetically, three times a day are the flights back to Mexico. Two times a day are the flights back to the Northern Triangle, right. On Monday and Friday are the flights back to different African countries, right.”

“On Thursday and Sunday are the flights back to different Asian countries. So you create this efficiency by having these standing facilities where planes are moving off the runway constantly, probably military aircraft, some existing DHS assets. And that’s how you’re able to scale and achieve the efficiency.”

“Efficiency. Yes, that’s precisely the principle you should be following when breaking down the door of a suspiciously ethnic-looking person so you can tear them away from their children and send them to a detainment camp in the desert somewhere. Just make sure you do it efficiently!”

Diabolical

This would mean that Trump would have to “enlist both local police forces and National Guard troops in order to come anywhere near the manpower needed. But these people [Trump, Miller, et. al.] are so certifiably insane that they are actually talking about having red state National Guard soldiers invading blue states for this purpose – per Miller: ““And if you’re going to go into an unfriendly state like Maryland, well, there would just be Virginia doing the arrest in Maryland, right, very close, very nearby.”  

As for the issue of where do you put 15 million detained people, Balko cites a Ron Brownstein article in The Atlantic: “Brownstein consulted with experts who made the dystopian suggestion of housing immigrants in warehouses and abandoned shopping malls.” Yeah, might as well put that shuttered Macy’s to use…

“Deportation, of course, will also require massive resources to send migrants to other countries — and those countries’ cooperation. Imagine how much that cooperation will break down, with enormous diplomatic consequences, when we start sending hundreds of thousands of people to them. Will airports become filled with homeless people with no country willing to accept them?”

Suicidal Economics

Here are a few typically unexamined and disturbing economic consequences that are likely under the deportation plan, as noted by Kindler.

“Tens of thousands of mixed-status families would be plunged into poverty, as the average annual income of households with at least one undocumented family member would drop from $41,000 per year to $23,000. The plan would also put more than 1 million mortgages in jeopardy, destabilizing the housing market.”

“[Center-right think tank] AAF…estimated that [Trump’s 2017 immigration plan] would result in a 6.4 percent reduction in the labor pool, which over 20 years would result in a U.S. economy about 6 percent smaller than it otherwise would be, at a loss of $1.6 trillion…A more recent calculation of the 15 million deportation plan estimates that GDP would immediately drop by 1.4 percent, and by $4.7 trillion over the next 10 years.”

“If Trump manages even a fraction of his deportation goals, expect to see a more punishing surge in inflation, driven by an increase in the cost of groceries, services like childcare and elder care, and new home construction.”

Moral Stain

“The goal will be to deport as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, and purge anyone who tries to slow it down. Sticklers for legal restrictions or basic human rights will be quickly dismissed. If it costs too much or becomes to impractical to house and transport detained immigrants humanely, they’ll do it inhumanely. If it costs too much to afford them basic due process rights, they’ll ignore due process. If the immigration courts are moving too slowly, or if there just aren’t enough of them, they’ll just go around the courts.”

“Opposing undocumented immigration is one thing. Finding joy and glee at armed enforcers pulling people from their homes, cramming them into camps, and dumping them off in countries they barely know is diabolical.”

Mob rule

Michelle Goldberg argues that Trump’s rule would be abetted by “mob rule”  (https://nytimes.com/2024/06/07/opinion/donald-trump-mob-maga.html).

“One of the more unsettling things about our politics right now is the Republican Party’s increasingly open embrace of lawlessness. Even as they proclaim Trump’s innocence, Trump and his allies revel in the frisson of criminality. At his rally in the Bronx last month, for example, Trump invited onto the stage two rappers, Sheff G and Sleepy Hallow, who are currently facing charges of conspiracy to commit murder and weapons possession. (They’ve pleaded not guilty.) During Trump’s recent criminal trial, his courtroom entourage included Chuck Zito, who helped found the New York chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang and spent six years in prison on drug conspiracy charges. (The Justice Department has linked his Hells Angels chapter to the Gambino crime family.) Trump, who has his own history of mafia ties, has repeatedly compared himself to Al Capone. MAGA merchants sell T-shirts — and, weirdly, hot sauce — showing Trump as either Vito or Michael Corleone from ‘The Godfather’ movies, with the caption ‘The Donfather.’”

Goldberg refers to points from the “new book by John Ganz, “When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s.” The book “offers a useful way to think about the value system undergirding MAGA’s romance with the mob. Ganz’s book excavates a prehistory of Trumpism in the angry, cynical period between the end of the Cold War and the full flush of the Clinton boom. You can see, in the rise of figures like David Duke, Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan, Trumpism in embryo. (The chapter on Duke, and the cultish loyalty he inspired, is particularly illuminating.) But the most revelatory section — some of which Ganz has adapted in a post for his Unpopular Front newsletter — involves the mystique around the mobster John Gotti and the Buchanan-style paleoconservatives who saw, in the mafia, an admirable patriarchal alternative to the technocratic liberalism they despised.

“Both Murray Rothbard, a co-founder of the libertarian Cato Institute, and Sam Francis, a white nationalist who has become posthumously influential among MAGA elites, found in ‘The Godfather’ novel and films a vision of a self-governing social order more admirable than our own.

“Francis used the German terms Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft to contrast the values of the Godfather with those of liberal modernity. Gemeinschaft, he wrote, describes a culture based on ‘kinship, blood relationship, feudal ties, social hierarchy, deference, honor, and friendship,’ whereas Gesellschaft refers to a social world that is atomized, calculating and legalistic.”

“There’s a similar dichotomy between Trump and his enemies: He represents charismatic personal authority as opposed to the bureaucratic dictates of the law. Under his rule, the Republican Party, long uneasy with modernity, has given itself over to Gemeinschaft. The Trump Organization was always run as a family business, and now that Trump has made his dilettante daughter-in-law vice chair of the Republican National Committee, the Republican Party is becoming one as well.

“To impose a similar regime of personal rule on the country at large, Trump has to destroy the already rickety legitimacy of the existing system. “As in Machiavelli’s thought, The Prince is not only above the law but the source of law and all social and political order, so in the Corleone universe, the Don is ‘responsible’ for his family, a responsibility that authorizes him to do virtually anything except violate the obligations of the family bond,” Francis wrote. That also seems to be how Trump sees himself, minus, of course, the family obligations. What’s frightening is how many Republicans see him the same way.”

“It’s a sign that a culture is in the grip of a deep nihilism and despair when moblike figures become romantic heroes, or worse, presidents.”

Trump’s allies and followers also want retribution/revenge against opponents, especially after his guilty verdict in the “hush money” case in New York.

David Corn considers Trump’s obsession with revenge, pointing out that the “convicted felon has long hailed retaliation as a key to his success” (https://motherjones.com/politics/2024/06/trumps-obsession-with-revenge-a-big-post-verdict-danger). Here’s some of his evidence.

“Three days after a New York City jury turned Donald Trump into the first former president branded a felon, the onetime reality television host told Fox News, ‘My revenge will be success.’ Through much of his life, Trump ‘has exhibited an intense obsession with vengeance and seeking retribution against those he considers his foes and detractors.’” He is a role model for his allies in this regard.

Here is the crux of Corn’s analysis.

#1 – Trumps reaction to his guilty verdict

“Three days after a New York City jury turned Donald Trump into the first former president branded a felon, the onetime reality television host told Fox News, ‘My revenge will be success.’ This above-the-fray rhetoric was not to be believed, for Trump, through much of his life, has exhibited an intense obsession with vengeance and seeking retribution against those he considers his foes and detractors, including President Joe Biden.

#2 – Trump has a long record of vengeful rhetoric

Corn writes: “Trump has long had a love affair with revenge—to such an extent that this fixation should be added to the list of concerns reasonable people ought to have about a Trump restoration. If Trump, with his authoritarian impulses, returns to the White House, it is rather likely he will use his power to extract payback—for this conviction, the other civil and criminal cases filed against him, and all perceived slights and assaults. There will be a revenge-a-thon.”

#3 – His Republican followers in the Congress also called for retribution. “Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) tweeted, ‘Time for Red State AGs and DAs to get busy’—a clear demand for state and local prosecutors to target Democrats. Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon each called on Republican prosecutors to launch probes against Democrats. Mike Davis, a right-wing legal activist who’s been mentioned as a possible attorney general if Trump wins, told Axios that Republican prosecutors in Florida and George should initiate criminal investigations of Democrats for engaging in election interference by indicting Trump. House Speaker Mike Johnson informed his Republican colleagues that he was plotting ways to punish the Justice Department and local jurisdictions that prosecute Trump.”

#4 – “Commenters on pro-Trump websites called for violence against the judge in Trump’s hush-money/election-interference case and against liberals in general. Trump supporters also tried to dox the jurors—setting them up as targets—and posted violent threats against the prosecutors. John Eastman, the indicted lawyer who helped Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election (and whose law license has been suspended in California and Washington, DC), came close to justifying violence when he warned that if Trump is sentenced to prison, Trump supporters will be ‘taking matters into their own hands’ and ‘seeking remedies on their own.’”

#5 – “Before running for president, Trump gave many speeches and public talks in which he expressed his fondness for retribution. In 2011, he addressed the National Achievers Congress in Sydney, Australia and explained how he had achieved his wealth and fame. He noted there were a couple of lessons not taught in business school that people aiming to be successful must know. At the top of the list was this piece of advice: ‘Get even with people. If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard. I really believe it.’” In a 2012 speech, Trump said, “If somebody hits you, you’ve got to hit ’em back five times harder than they ever thought possible. You’ve got to get even. Get even. And the reason, the reason you do, is so important…The reason you do, you have to do it, because if they do that to you, you have to leave a telltale sign that they just can’t take advantage of you. It’s not so much for the person, which does make you feel good, to be honest with you, I’ve done it many times. But other people watch and you know they say, ‘Well, let’s leave Trump alone,’ or ‘Let’s leave this one,’ or ‘Doris, let’s leave her alone. They fight too hard.’  I say it, and it’s so important. You have to, you have to hit back. You have to hit back.”

#6 – “And it was only a few months ago that the Washington Post reported that Trump and his allies ‘have begun mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents should he win a second term, with the former president naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute.’ That list included people who had worked for Trump and became critics, including former chief of staff John Kelly, former Attorney General Bill Barr, and retired Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as Biden and his family. The article—headlined “Trump and allies plot revenge, Justice Department control in a second term”—generated much reaction, with pundits pointing to it as more evidence of Trump’s extremism and authoritarian yearnings.

——————

Trump’s support includes “big tech”

Despite Trump’s poor record as president and his continuous attacks on opponents, he not only dominates the Republican Party and has the unquestioning support of the tens of millions of Americans who represent his “base,” he also has the support of many “big tech CEOs,” according to a report by Jo-han Jones for MSNBC (https://msnbc.com/the-reidout-blog/trump-fundraising-donations-tech-rcna155889). Ja’han Jones is The ReidOut Blog writer. He’s a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include “Black Hair Defined” and the “Black Obituary Project.”

“This week’s “Tuesday Tech Drop” documented one aspect of that phenomenon, in which some influential figures in tech who previously donated to Democrats are now lining up behind Trump’s campaign. And last week, Reuters reported that the venture capitalists David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya are hosting a high-dollar event for Trump in San Francisco on Thursday, designed to show an outpouring of support from Silicon Valley leaders for the convicted former president. To the extent that this may come as a surprise, that may be rooted in a widespread misconception of Silicon Valley as a bastion of liberalism and not what it truly is: an epitome of crony capitalism, exclusion and white male elitism.” 

“In reality, the public alignment of some tech executives with the Trump campaign is pretty easy to understand. Generally speaking, Silicon Valley leaders are overwhelmingly white and male — and disproportionately rich. Which is to say, they belong to a group that Trump and his allies have gone to great lengths to show they’ll defend in a second Trump term. And conversely, Joe Biden’s administration has taken steps to bring more equity and diversity to the tech industry and to ensure rich people pay their fair share in taxes, both of which could diminish the power of those who’ve already made a killing off of Big Tech.” 

“Trump… is vowing to give a massive tax cut to the rich if elected. Judges he handpicked have ruled that efforts to diversify the tech industry amount to anti-white discrimination. And Trump himself has said he’d prioritize ridding America of ‘anti-white  if he’s elected. 

“Author Malcolm Harris’ book ‘Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World’ is a great read for anyone looking to disabuse themselves of the pollyannaish propaganda about Silicon Valley’s purported progressive bonafides. The history of how Silicon Valley (largely built on Ohlone land) and its roots intertwine with the development of nuclear weapons dispelled for me some of the more fanciful depictions that portray Silicon Valley executives as avatars of a progressive revolution.”

Under a second Trump presidency, the Department of Justice will become “the legal wing of the MAGA movement”

This is the thesis of Elie Mystal (https://thenation.com/article/society/project-2025-doj-justice).

“There has probably never been a president who was more ignorant of the government, the Constitution, and the laws of this country than Donald Trump was in 2017. The man came to power with a child’s understanding of civics and a mob boss’s understanding of power. Instead of using the power of government to effectuate his agenda, he thought he could simply bend the law to his will.

“Trump was wrong, and the Department of Justice showed him why.”

“It’s a lesson he will not have forgotten if he wins or steals a second term. Mandate for Leadership, the Project 2025 blueprint for an eventual authoritarian takeover of the federal government, contains a lot of dangerous proposals for how Trump and his ruling conservatives can remake the executive branch. The authors’ ideas for the Department of Justice reflect not only their lust for unchallenged power, but also a deep fear of the DOJ’s independence—and, more particularly, the way that independence might be used against them if the DOJ is not brought to heel. Put simply: The conservatives hope to use the DOJ to make their darkest desires legal, while at the same time taking away the best legal means to stop them.

“As a first step, the Project 2025 Mandate recommends hollowing out the FBI,” eliminating its independence.

“In order to accomplish this, Project 2025 proposes pushing Congress to demote the FBI, and its director, to a lower rung on the DOJ’s organizational chart and make the director report to a political functionary. It also wants Congress to eliminate the 10-year term of the FBI director to make it easier for the president to replace the director at will, like most other political appointees. Again, Trump got burned for firing Comey, and this proposal would make sure any future FBI director is sufficiently loyal.”

“The Project 2025 Mandate calls for renewing the bureau’s focus on ‘violent’ crime—and that word choice is important, because it leaves out nonviolent crimes like bank fraud, tax evasion, bribery, and document theft—you know, all the things that Trump or his business or donor-class friends are accused of doing. The document further suggests stripping the FBI of its legal workforce—the 300 or so attorneys employed by the bureau—which would turn the FBI into an even blunter weapon than it already is, completely untethered from the Constitution or civil rights.

“In line with the mission of hurting the ‘right’ people, Mandate’s chapter on the DOJ details big plans for resuming Trump’s campaign against immigrants. Those plans include deploying the power of the Justice Department against Democrats who govern in “sanctuary cities.” Indeed, there’s a whole paragraph devoted to the wild idea of using the DOJ to sue district attorneys who use their discretion in ways that the conservatives don’t like—including, though hardly limited to, refusing to help deport immigrants:

Where warranted and proper under federal law, initiate legal action against local officials—including District Attorneys—who deny American citizens the ‘equal protection of the laws’ by refusing to prosecute criminal offenses in their jurisdictions. This holds true particularly for jurisdictions that refuse to enforce the law against criminals based on the Left’s favored defining characteristics of the would-be offender (race, so-called gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) or other political considerations (e.g., immigration status).

“That paragraph is bonkers (and its recommendations would be unconstitutional if the people behind Project 2025 hadn’t already secured a conservative Supreme Court to rubber-stamp their authoritarian plans). But it reflects a general trend in Mandate’s chapter on the DOJ to put the department on the offense against the favored targets of the MAGA movement: people of color, women, immigrants, and the LGBTQ community.”

“When you break down what Project 2025 wants to do with the Justice Department, it’s chilling and terrifying, and yet I’m also struck by how petty and mean-spirited the tone of the document is. These people are consumed by their personal grievances (against Black people, against the media, against Hunter Biden and his laptop). There are multiple passages devoted to complaining that the DOJ has prosecuted people who threaten abortion clinics and parents who threaten school boards, as if being vile and hateful toward pregnant people and schoolteachers is their most precious “freedom.” Giving these people the DOJ is like giving a chimpanzee a gun: It’s inherently dangerous even when the chimp wields it like a crooked club.”

“Project 2025 is telling us exactly how the conservatives plan to take away the rights of women, people of color, and the LGBTQ community. I beg the American people to believe them. This dystopian future isn’t a threat, it’s a certainty, should we give these people power again.

Trump is not fit to be America’s Commander in Chief

Maria Bautista argues that “As a convicted felon, Trump isn’t fit to lead America’s military as commander in chief”

(https://usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2024/06/06/trump-convicted-felon-comander-chief-military/73971641007). Marla Bautista is a military fellow columnist for USA TODAY Opinion.

“Former president and convicted felon Donald Trump should not become America’s next commander in chief. His criminal record and despicable behavior undermine national security as well as trust, leadership and morale among the men and women who risk their lives to defend our nation.

“Over the past three decades, Trump has been a defendant or plaintiff in more than 4,000 lawsuits, and last week a jury found him guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal or commit a crime. It was only the first of the criminal trials he faces.

“Trump’s lack of ethical standards and integrity goes against everything the U.S. military stands for. He has proved that under pressure, he will crack. If he were to become commander in chief again, he might well compromise our country by giving in to coercion or revealing secrets that could get Americans killed.”

“National security keeps our military members alive. Heck, it keeps us all alive. Allowing someone who flagrantly disregards the law and authority of any manner to lead our armed services would not keep our nation secure.”

Bautista continues.

“Cybersecurity and international espionage are a dangerous game, and for someone like Trump to have the cheat codes would be like showing your child how to use one tap to make in-app purchases, then telling them not to buy any games. America’s adversaries are watching and taking notes. They would welcome the former president’s tarnished moral compass because it could be used to weaken America’s national security.

“Trump as commander in chief would hurt America’s global credibility

“Former military leaders, such as retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, who served during the Trump administration have called him dangerous and unfit. Trump has injured relationships between the United States and its allies, and his actions on the international stage were seen as weak and unstable, directly harming diplomatic relations.”

“In Bob Woodard’s book “Rage,” Trump told a former adviser, “My f—ing generals are a bunch of p—ies.” It wasn’t the first or the last time he berated our military’s most revered leaders.

“Remember when he called service members who made the ultimate sacrifice ‘losers and suckers’? I do.”

Contrary to Trump’s views, “Strength and resilience are the glue that holds the military together, and our military leaders’ attention should be focused on mission readiness and defense, not mitigating Trump’s PR nightmares.  

“The U.S. military prides itself on decorum, discipline, respect and an honorable reputation.

“Trump exhibits none of those qualities.

“Felons generally can’t serve in the military

“In the values and character section of the Go Army website, it states that a person convicted of a felony is generally not permitted to join the military. So how on earth should a felon be allowed to lead the entire military if he couldn’t join because of his criminal record?

Whether voters choose to embrace or ostracize the convicted former president will shape the image and culture of America’s military for decades to come.

As president, unstable and revengeful Trump could start a nuclear war

Adam Mount reminds us that “There’s Nothing Between an Unstable President and the Nuclear Button” (https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/03/18/united-states-nuclear-weapons-president-deterrence-law). Adam Mount is a senior fellow and the director of the Defense Posture Project at the Federation of American Scientists. Mount writes as follows.

“In the latest sign of his fascination with using nuclear weapons, former U.S. President Donald Trump told a crowd in January that one of the reasons he needed immunity was so that he couldn’t be indicted for using nuclear weapons on a city, like former President Harry Truman did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“As Trump consolidates the Republican Party nomination, it is past time to ensure that no president can authorize an unnecessary or illegal nuclear attack.

It’s important to remember how worried top U.S. officials were three years ago. As Trump was attempting to overturn the election results, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley about whether he could prevent ‘an unstable president’ from using nuclear weapons. For his part, Milley reportedly gathered senior officers to remind them not to act on orders unless he was involved, telling them, ‘no matter what you are told, you do the procedure. You do the process. And I’m part of that procedure.

“In fact, neither Pelosi nor Milley had any lawful authority to prevent a determined Trump from using nuclear weapons. The sole restriction on the president’s authority to order a nuclear attack is that members of the armed forces are obligated to refuse to carry out an order that violates the law of war. Among other things, officers must decline to conduct a nuclear strike that is not necessary to defeat an enemy as quickly and efficiently as possible or that would cause damage to civilians that is indiscriminate, inhumane, or disproportionate to the military objective.

“In 2017, as Trump was improvising nuclear threats to North Korea, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command (Stratcom) made headlines by saying that he would not carry out an illegal launch order. Instead, Gen. John Hyten said he would inform a president that an order was illegal and then come up with “capabilities to respond to whatever the situation is, and that’s the way it works. It’s not that complicated.”

“But it is complicated. The expected procedure is that a president considering nuclear use would convene a “decision conference” with senior advisors to consider options that are laid out in the football, a briefcase that follows the president everywhere. However, there is no logistical or legal requirement that a president convene a decision conference, engage with it in good faith, or take its advice seriously. In fact, the football can send a decision directly to the National Military Command Center (NMCC), which then generates an order and transmits it to U.S. forces.”

“It is also not clear how specific officials would interpret their obligations under the law of armed conflict. Who has standing to object to an order? What would they consider to be a legitimate military objective? Would they be able to evaluate nonnuclear options to determine that a nuclear weapon was the lowest effective level of force, as required? Exactly how would they calculate what number of incidental civilian deaths are proportionate to the military objective?”

“Before the election, President Joe Biden should put in place a defined, effective, rigorous, and legal procedure for preventing any president from issuing an illegal nuclear launch order.

“He can start by establishing a structure for the decision conference. If a president accesses the football, the NMCC should automatically convene a conference among a specified set of principals, including the secretaries of state and defense, the chairman, the Stratcom commander, and the relevant regional combatant commander who can advise on conditions in an ongoing conflict. Each of these principals should be accompanied by their primary legal counsel, who is prepared to assess the legality of a nuclear order.

When the president transmits a decision to use nuclear weapons, each principal should submit a decision to certify or not to certify that the order complies with U.S. obligations under the law of armed conflict. If the attending principals certify the legality of a presidential order, it can then become a valid order and is transmitted to the NMCC. Just as the NMCC authenticates an order as being from a president, it should also require certification of legality before it transmits that order to launch crews.”

“As a first step, Biden should declare that the United States would use nuclear weapons only in extreme circumstances when there is no viable nonnuclear alternative for accomplishing vital military objectives. This would not only encourage planners to prioritize more credible conventional options, but also rule out the use of nuclear weapons to coerce or terrify enemies. The president could also state that the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would violate the law of armed conflict today and will never happen again.”

“Currently, the Defense Department’s law of war manual contains all of three sentences on the legality of nuclear operations. These presidential statements and guidance would help future officials interpret concepts such as necessity and discrimination and provide them with grounds to object to an unnecessary, unprovoked, or cruel launch order. Once in place, they would be difficult for an irresponsible president to walk back.”

“The current procedure for authorizing nuclear use both fails to inform a responsible president and could fail to constrain an irresponsible one from ordering or even carrying out an unnecessary nuclear attack. Before he leaves office, Biden should confine this system to the past and establish one that is more rigorous and more effective. At the presidential inauguration in January 2025, either way, he’ll be glad he did.”

Concluding thoughts

The evidence is compelling that, despite his recent conviction, Trump has tens of millions of Americans, including many of the rich and powerful, who are avid supporters. There appears to be hardly any limit on what they are prepared to do in November. Win or lose, his constituencies are ready to follow him. They appear to be energized by Trump’s call for retribution. The country has not faced such widespread political and moral extremism since the Civil War. But now, we have the capacity to blow up the world and the president has the authority to initiate such an apocalyptic war. Annie Jacobsen describes how such a war, once started, would end the world that as we know it in a matter of hours. See her book, “Nuclear War: A Scenario.”

Thom Hartmann argues that a top priority for rational voters in November 2024 is to vote for Biden, the only presidential candidate potentially able to defeat Trump (https://commondreams.org/opinion/stop-fascism-trump).