Republicans and a Trump Tweet Bring Back the Cold War in One Day
Teach your kids and grandkids how to duck and cover, like my generation did 60 years ago.
First the Republican congress takes the word “limited” out of our missile defense policy. Then, before Obama can veto the bill, and wait for it to be overridden, Putin comes out with strengthening the Russian nuclear ability to penetrate our future nuclear shield. Then, Trump tweets in one tweet only that Trump will “greatly strengthen and expand our nuclear capability”. Nobody on Trump’s team knows what he means. The New York Times had to dissect it word for word, with dozens of possibilities.
What will happen tomorrow? Full scale Nuclear War? Announced first on Twitter?
This is precisely what Clinton told the public in the debates, that Trump did not have the temperament to be President. Did Trump’s future Secretary of Energy, ex-Texas-Gov. Rick Perry, even have time to meet with the nuclear weapons part of the DOE to learn what our nuclear policy is, and what the reasons for it are, and give a detailed report to the president-elect? Did Trump ask the State Department or the Department of Defense what their plans were, or ask the CIA briefers? Did he consult with any weapons scientists, or anti-missile system scientists? This reminds me when Ronald Reagan fell under the spell of hydrogen bomb builder Edward Teller, and wasted $30 billion on a useless anti-missile space weapon. Did Trump consult with President Obama, or did Trump only depend on his disruptive Lt. Gen. Flynn, his national security advisor? It’s hard to cite in a tweet how long or how deep you have studied the issue.
It seems that Trump is crossing his election buddy and aide Vladimir Putin who helped Trump with hacking and Wikileaks. So even Putin can’t rely on Trump?
In the same tweet, Trump said that he was acting so that we could end our nuclear madness. It seemed that agreements on de-escalation and diminishing weapons was working on that problem.
Before this started, I was going to say that making Kellyanne Conway Trump’s counselor was good since she could be consulted before he asked for the nuclear briefcase. I was wrong, since she appeared on Rachel Maddow tonight, and had not been able to reach Trump to find out what he meant. Or, maybe Kellyanne had left for the show, and wasn’t there to modify the tweet.
We can expect during the next few days that his spokespersons will downgrade the shock of his statements, and then Trump will say that they all are wrong, and that he meant what he said. This embarrassment just happened to Newt Gingrich, who said that Trump really wasn’t going to empty the swamp, whatever that means for any particular day. Or, they try to construct a back story showing how much policy thought went before the tweet, as they did when Trump took a phone call from Taiwan’s leader. Or both.
I feel saddest for the students who will have to live with ‘duck and cover’ as part of their public school education.
I already wrote an article about the Trump Tweet Tactical Teams that exist in leading governments, investment houses, and apparently news networks, to try to determine what the latest tweet means. Since Trump’s last news conference, he has had 1,491 tweets. Lots of interpreting to be done. The one thing that is consistent, is that Trump said he would carry out his foreign policy with surprises. Surprise, you’re targeted!
