Make no mistake, we’re on the brink, staring down the abyss while the abyss stares back at us. Scientists moved the doomsday clock up thirty seconds on the day Donald Trump took office, ticking down our civilization and our very existence at two and half minutes to midnight. If they’re paying attention, they will probably push it up another minute before this week is out. The last time we were this close to nuclear war, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev were playing a game of chicken in Cuba, just ninety miles from what everyone in the Trump White House is now calling “the homeland” (which frighteningly resonates with Nazi Germany’s “fatherland” and the Soviets’ “motherland”). JFK had a law degree from Harvard and hard-won experience in the consequences of conflict from his days on a PT boat in the Pacific during WWII. Donald Trump has a business degree from Wharton and five deferments from the Vietnam War because his debilitating heel spur…the one that doesn’t seem to bother him on the links at Trump National.
There is a report in the Washington Post, based on information from the Defense Intelligence Agency, that North Korea has successfully miniaturized a nuclear weapon to the point where it can fit in the nose cone of an ICBM. The most recent North Korean missile tests have shown a rocket with enough boost and burn time to reach the continental United States. The delivery system is a done deal. We’ve seen it with our own eyes. The rumored warhead is another matter. If we really know for sure that the warhead exists, that would imply that we have a human intelligence asset deep in the North Korean military or government. Do we? It would be the most dangerous job on the planet. If such a person exists, let’s just hope that our erstwhile leader doesn’t tweet out his death warrant.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that the warhead and the rocket are armed and ready. Kim Jong Un has directly threatened to bomb our airbase in Guam and implied on many occasions that he would unhesitatingly use his nukes on the continental United States. Donald Trump has replied that if threatened, the US would respond with “fire, fury, and power the likes of which the world has never seen”, and then followed it up by saying that since his election, the US nuclear arsenal is “stronger and more powerful than ever before”. I don’t think any of us need a Rand McNally atlas to connect those dots and see where they lead. Trump seems almost giddy at the prospect of a biblical calamity right out of the Book of Revelations.
What should the United States do? Whatever it is, I can’t think of anyone less qualified to make the decision than Donald J. Trump. We don’t have John Kennedy in the Situation Room with his brother Robert, his defense secretary Robert McNamara, and the rest of his Harvard brain trust weighing every contingency and contemplating every outcome. Instead, we’ve got the mad king and the Insane Clown Posse circling like vultures over the nuclear football, just waiting for the carrion to ripen before they devour it.
This feeling of being trapped in some kind of bad acid trip seasoned with a hefty dose of paranoia just grows with every passing day. It almost feels inevitable that we’d be on the brink of nuclear war since the morning of November 9. It was never a good idea to let a child play with grown-up toys. We’re closer and closer to opening Pandora’s Box and unleashing the furies upon the planet. Once that happens, it marks a turning point from which there is no return. I’d like to suggest what you and I can do, but the honest truth is that there’s nothing we can do. A friend of mine who claims to have a connection to the other side tells me to abandon the fear and pray for divine intervention. My contention is that if there was some deity who was inclined to intercede, it already would have happened on election day. On the other hand, praying certainly isn’t going to hurt. Good luck to us all.
Blue Guy in a Red State 