Ezra Klein wrote a column in Vox last week in which he argued that Trump is a clear and present danger to the American public. I agree, for the following reasons:
1. Trump is a threat to our economic system. Our economy, and that of the entire world, is based on stability, confidence, and trust. Putting a chaos agent in charge of the linchpin of the system will cause markets all over the world to go into free fall. In addition, his plans for a huge tax cut and trade wars will result in skyrocketing interest rates. A Trump victory will be a disaster for your 401(k).
2. Trump is a threat to our constitutional liberties. His plan to “reform” libel laws is intended to suppress legitimate dissent. His unconditional support for the police and what he calls “law and order” suggests an indifference to the constitutional rights of criminal defendants. His advocacy of torture in the face of international law indicates that he has no respect for fundamental principles of fairness and decency. Finally, his strong man act presages issues with constitutional checks and balances.
3. Trump is a threat to our lives. Trump’s foreign policy will drive away our allies and leave us alone in a hostile world. His hair-trigger temper and thin skin are incompatible with control of the nuclear codes. Finally, his desire to remain unpredictable and to keep everything on the table during negotiations suggests that he is capable of using nuclear conflict as a bargaining chip.
The counterargument to this is that Trump is too lazy to be a genuine authoritarian, that he only wants the trappings of power, and that his man on horseback routine is just a series of opportunistic improvisations. A lot of that is probably true; I have advocated for some of those positions in previous posts. The bottom line, however, is that the logic of his campaign may well drive him to take more extreme positions than he contemplated when he began. There could be nothing more ridiculous than a strong man who can’t get anything done; given the choice of looking pathetic or doubling down, which option do you think he would pick?