Donald Trump is going to get us all killed with his tweet about 'nukes'
LatestIf you’re anything like me, you enjoy “being alive,” and would largely prefer to stay that way for the immediate time being.
“Being alive,” however, faced a serious challenge on Thursday, when President-elect Donald Trump tweeted his desire to “greatly strengthen” the United States’ capacity to end millions of lives in a deluge of atomic fire.
Ignoring, for a moment, the breezy use of the term “nukes” from a man who will soon have the capacity to launch them, Trump’s pledge to beef up America’s atomic arsenal should terrify you for any number of reasons. Among them:
-It would roll back decades of steady (albeit stuttered) reduction in the U.S. nuclear stockpile.
-It comes literally the same day as Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly urged his military to bolster its nuclear capacity (Cold War? Let’s heat that sucker right back up, shall we?).
-If we do all die in a raging nuclear inferno, it will likely be in no small part thanks to a tweet, and boy are we gonna feel like schmucks if that’s what ultimately gets us.
Trump’s mid-afternoon mini-missive also serves as a good rebuttal to those who argue Trump’s Twitter is just a distraction from the serious stuff—as if the President-elect of the United States declaring an intent to grow the atomic arsenal isn’t serious enough?
Of course, President-elect Trump doesn’t have his hands on the nuclear football just yet. And, who knows, maybe this is just empty posturing.
But, when it comes to the prospect of President Trump with an itchy atomic trigger-finger, I can’t help but wonder why no one warned us this might happen?