Matthew Rozsa offers a go-to guide for explaining how Donald Trump may literally bring about the end of the world.
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America is in a “boy who cried wolf” situation right now. We’ve grown so accustomed to comparing our presidents with tyrants, or insisting that a candidate’s ascent to power will result in calamity, that even those of us who see an actual wolf in our midst aren’t being taken seriously. The people voting for Donald Trump are well aware of our concerns but – having grown jaded to polemical hyperbole – aren’t able to recognize that the threat is real this time.
Make no mistake about it, though: The danger posed by Trump is very, very real. One may disagree with the policies pursued by George W. Bush and Barack Obama, but the hysterical response to their presidencies was always grossly disproportionate. Bush was a neoconservative and Obama is a moderate liberal; Trump, on the other hand, is a man driven more by bold stabs in the dark than any consistent ideology. Assuming he follows through on his proposals, it is quite likely that some of them would cause terrible consequences not only for America, but the entire world.
To explain how this is so, though, we need to stop with the inappropriate comparisons to Hitler (which I debunked in this piece for MSNBC) and instead focus on the nitty gritty of what he has said he would try to do.
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1. The economy.
Although Trump makes valid points about America’s anti-working class trade policies, his proposed solutions would be disastrous. As president, he would have the power to increase tariffs on Chinese and Mexican goods by as much as 45 percent. If he did this, those countries would almost certainly retaliate with comparable measures targeting America’s products. The resulting trade war would inevitably increase prices and reduce job growth, knocking the American economy back on its heels only a few years after the Obama administration led us to a precarious recovery. Even more troubling than what we know, though, is what we don’t know. The slightest adverse development can have unforeseen ripple effects in our globalized economy, and because America has been a staunchly pro-free trade nation since the 1930s, it is impossible to predict the full impact of an about-face as abrupt as the one Trump is proposing. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t modify our trade policies to be more amenable to the interests of our working class, but we need to do so responsibly.
Regardless of how one feels about Hillary Clinton, there is no sound reason to believe that she poses an existential threat to our future. Trump, on the other hand, has proposed policies that could plausibly result in economic collapse, ecological devastation, and even worldwide nuclear war. Every American voting in the 2016 presidential election is going to have to make one of the most important choices of their lifetime. For once, it isn’t an exaggeration to say that failure here could bring about the end of the world as we know it.
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2. Global warming.
Trump’s is a well-known denier of man-made global warming, a position that perfectly fits in with his other conspiratorial views (he believes the scientific consensus on global warming is a plot by the Chinese to control the world economy). As a result, when he vows to “renegotiate” the Paris deal in which more than 200 nations vowed to curb greenhouse gas emissions, it’s safe to assume that he would not care one whit about slowing our planet’s dangerous overheating. Unfortunately, the science isn’t going to accommodate Trump’s iconoclasm; as the earth continues to overheat, humanity will face mega-storms, droughts, famines, and the mass extinction of countless species. As Peace and World Security Studies Professor Michael T. Klare wrote last October, “Scientists have long worried that climate change will not continue to advance in a ‘linear’ fashion, with the planet getting a little bit hotter most years. Instead, they fear, humanity could someday experience ‘non-linear’ climate shifts (also known as ‘singularities’ or ‘tipping points’) after which there would be sudden and irreversible change of a catastrophic nature.” As Klare notes, there are early signs that this is already happening, and it stands to reason that if Trump torpedoes an international agreement to reduce carbon emissions, that could very well push us past the tipping point.
3. Nuclear war.
Ever since Harry Truman dropped the bomb on Japan in 1945, American presidents have been expected to appreciate the sober responsibilities that come with being a nuclear power. In the 1964 presidential election, when Republican candidate Barry Goldwater was accused of being fast-and-loose about how he’d use our nukes, the threat of nuclear apocalypse helped sink his campaign. More than half a century later, however, Trump has openly discussed using tactical nuclear weapons against the Islamic State, arguing that “I don’t think you’re going to be successful [with Muslim countries] unless they respect you.” Even foreign policy hawks should be concerned by this position, and not merely because Trump has advocated it in places beyond the Middle East (he once told Chris Matthews that he wouldn’t take using nukes in Europe “off the table”). By equating the use of nuclear force with earning respect, Trump reveals an ominous thought pattern – namely that (a) if America is threatened by foreign enemies, it’s because they don’t respect us and (b) we can demand their respect by threatening them with total annihilation. This is the exact mentality that the United States and Soviet Union scrupulously avoided succumbing to during the Cold War, since both superpowers understood that if nuclear nations were permitted to behave this way, the final result would be total destruction.
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Regardless of how one feels about Hillary Clinton, there is no sound reason to believe that she poses an existential threat to our future. Trump, on the other hand, has proposed policies that could plausibly result in economic collapse, ecological devastation, and even worldwide nuclear war. Every American voting in the 2016 presidential election is going to have to make one of the most important choices of their lifetime. For once, it isn’t an exaggeration to say that failure here could bring about the end of the world as we know it.
Photo: Flickr – Rich/”Apocalypse”
Without controlling our numbers it doesn´t make any difference who´s the psychopath in power could do to make our ecological situation worse, perhaps if trump can really cripple the global economy and I´m counting on it, he can be a good thing for the environment.
Actually, even starting a nuclear war would be preferable than keeping our current curse.
Trump is the 666 Anti-Christ
There’s very real reason to fear that Hillary Clinton poses an existential threat to our future, backed by concrete logic. She supports antagonizing China as part of Obama’s “Asian pivot.” She supports antagonizing Russia by bringing NATO figuratively to the gates of Moscow, and fomenting coups to overthrow leaders friendly to Putin. She supports counter-productive Middle East policies which continue to drain our treasury while creating ever-greater terrorist threats. More directly to the point: She’s a strong advocate of admitting Georgia to NATO. A few years ago, that madman Saakashvili attacked civilians in South Ossetia, and then claimed that the… Read more »
The email stuff in the latest report is about as damning as a report showing that she drives faster than the speed limit on I-495. Yeah, technically against the rules, but really only of concern to people who have already decided they hate her.
For the life of me, I’ll never understand why being honest, genuine and real takes a back seat to less-than-honest, false-impression-making, calculated manipulation techniques. I admire and hearten to women who risk honesty, more than just about anything else I can name. Maybe because no one can package and try to sell an individual’s authenticity and innate gifthood, it’s not the market leader. Method acting may work on opening night, but the moment of truth is the only sublime moment of freedom, and only out of false character and from the heart is the worthy bow taken. I’m convinced that… Read more »
Oops, not sure how my response ended up under the wrong article. Please ignore here! Thanks!
I could debate every one of your points but won’t bother as you never come back and debate any further. Plus these are campaign talks. You could’ve said how trump COULD destroy the country and the world but you said WOULD. your mind is made up because you don’t know, nor does anyone else what he WOULD do.
Matthew, Good article. It’s important that people speak out. We are in a new era. People are feeling that the political system does not speak to their needs and people are afraid for our collective future. At times like these there seem to be two directions a country can go: 1. Try the simple solution of voting for a “strong men” who will kick ass and tells us he can easily solve all our problems. This approach, I believe is dangerous, and can cause more problems than it solves. 2. Address the more serious problems and change the system in… Read more »
It IS important that people speak out … I agree, “We can now add this ” A State Department audit faults Clinton on private emails, and says she broke records rules.”