Idiots Are Already Trying to Give Trump a Nobel Peace Prize

Despite his having launched two missile attacks on Syria, threatening to unleash “fire, fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before” on North Korea, wondering why civilian casualties should be avoided, and promising to kill not just militants but their families, there is a growing movement among Republicans on Capitol Hill to nominate President Donald Trump for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize (for real this time).

If you feel the need to barf after reading those words, please do so.

“We are seeing unprecedented progress toward peace, and it’s a direct result of President Trump’s strong leadership,” Indiana Republican Congressman Luke Messer declared on Friday, after leaders from North and South Korea took the first steps toward ending their countries’ longstanding war, and discussed the potential denuclearization of the region.

“Following this historic announcement, President Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize,” Messer continued. “Our peace through strength strategy is delivering never before seen results.”

Let us pause to remember that nothing has happened yet in North Korea, and that Trump is not the only person involved in the process.

As it happens, Messer isn’t the only Republican to float a Nobel for Trump. White House frenemy-who-is-actually-a-crotch-sniffing-lapdog Lindsay Graham also chimed in on Friday, telling Fox News that “We’re not there yet, but if this happens, President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.”

To his credit, at least Graham had the dignity to be conditional in his completely insane insinuation that a man who recently ordered thousands of troops to the United State’s southern border deserves the same prize that has been awarded to Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, the Dali Lama, and, uh, Henry Kissinger. (So they don’t always get it right.)

Still, to fully appreciate how batshit crazy this is, keep in mind that the GOP’s lauding of Trump for some vague, extremely precarious future deal is all happening on the exact same day that newly appointed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo essentially confirmed that the president plans to shred the Iran nuclear deal.

In some sense, this can be traced in part to the Nobel committee’s very stupid 2009 decision to award Barack Obama the Peace Prize—essentially for having simply said some nice things and then getting elected. That rash decision, followed by the Obama administration’s years-long crusade to kill thousands of people (including civilians) with flying death-robots, only served to cheapen the significance of the honor, and effectively opened the door for right wing nut jobs to ask themselves “hey, why not our guy, too?”

For the record, here’s what Alfred Nobel himself said about winners of the Peace Prize:

[they] shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

Fraternity between nations? Reduction of standing armies? Trump can’t even hold his wife’s hand without seeming to skeeve her to her very core.