The Tribune

THE end of Tuesday, November 8, 2016, cannot come and go soon enough for us. Hopefully when the ballots are counted at the end of the US elections that night, the pointing index finger, inflammatory and often crude rhetoric spewed from the pouting lips of Donald Trump will be gone from our TV screens forever.

Why should we be so concerned about the US elections when there are so many serious problems right here on this small island chain?

That is a good question. But although we are gravely concerned about the direction of the Christie government, and the lack of a unified opposition, at least no leader in The Bahamas has his finger on the nuclear button that could blow us all off the face of the Earth. Yet an erratic, thin-skinned Donald Trump, if elected would have this power. It’s enough to cause sleepless nights as one watches the biggest scam ever being pulled on the American people by Trump’s handlers.

By attempting to convince Americans that their candidate is “presidential”, his handlers daily try to transform him into someone that he is not. They script him, they prompt him, they see that his coat fits right, that his tie is in place, that he can stand erect next to the Mexican president, shake hands with a courteous bow of the head and look “presidential.” But there is nothing about this thin-skinned, narcissistic man that is presidential. When morning dawns, no one knows which Donald Trump will face the day - the one controlled by his handlers to fool the public, or the real Donald Trump, whose greatest love is of himself? No one can believe what he says, nor even know what he himself believes in — he changes from minute to minute, from day-to-day, from crisis-to-crisis to suit the moment. He is an overgrown bundle of confusion. He thinks he is amusing, that he is the best of God’s creations. Someone, should give him a good shake and tell him the truth.

The tragedy is that despite this farce so many Americans are falling for the scam. This alone indicates that all is not well among many working class Americans.

Bruce Blair, writing in Politico Magazine on June 11, 2016, had this to say about Trump and the power he could have over a nuclear arsenal.

“So where’s the beef in the criticism of Trump’s nuclear mind-set? What’s the rational basis for fearing him fingering the nuclear button? As far as Trump’s expressed policy views are concerned, there is precious little grist for concern, let alone alarm. Something else is worrying people, and it is not hard to put your finger on it: his character and personality—his tendency to see only one image, in black or white, in a Rorschach collage, to rush to an absolute judgment on the basis of ambiguous or mixed evidence, to vilify the motives and evil-doing of foreign hands, to divide the world into winners and losers, and to castigate people with whom he disagrees, perhaps including advisers offering a different or more nuanced opinion. These are the sorts of habits of Trump’s mind and emotional reflexes that lie at the heart of fear that a President Trump would be more prone than his predecessors to angrily order up a nuclear strike.”

Early on in his campaign, he vowed to order the military to commit war crimes, such as the reintroduction of waterboarding, killing families of terrorists “and even worse”. When it was suggested that military officials would refuse to follow orders, he barked, index finger pointing: “The military would not refuse my orders, even if they consider them illegal.”

To which US Army General Martin Dempsey (retired) replied:

“We take our oath to the Constitution, which is to say the rule of law. And we are duty-bound not to follow any order that is illegal or immoral. If an order is illegal or immoral, we should and would resign, because we couldn’t follow it.”

Possibly Trump is so ill-informed that he has never heard of the Nuremberg trials (1945-46) after World War II. These trials decided that “the fact that a person acted pursuant to the order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him”.

And that moral choice is resignation.

And, as Mr Trump was informed, a military man would resign, before following illegal orders. We wonder how our “I am all powerful” would take such a rebuff?

Within one hour and 34 minutes after the verdicts at Nuremberg were announced 10 Nazis were hanged. Hermann Goring cheated death by suicide, while Heinrich Himmler, also committed suicide 17 months earlier. Of course, Adolph Hitler took cyanide, then shot himself in a bunker, 55-feet under the chancellery, which was his headquarters.

And now we learn that Mr Trump wants to cosy up to Vladmir Putin, mainly because Putin caressed his ego and declared: “Donald Trump is a really brilliant and talented person, without a doubt.” Putin was probably laughing to himself knowing that the narcissist would get caught in the Putin spider web.

By now Trump should be aware that the US is an important member of NATO, and that Russia opposes the expansion of NATO into what Russia considers its area of influence. However, Mr Trump might not know that the Ukraine — if he can even find it on the map — is torn between a faction that wants to be with the West (NATO) and those who want to remain with Russia. Is he even aware of how Russia arbitrarily snatched the Crimea from the Ukraine? Now whose side will he be on when he and his new-found buddy, Putin, get together?

Will he point his finger in Putin’s face, pucker his lips, go red in the face and inform Putin of who is boss?

Donald Trump’s international knowledge is so shallow that this alone should eliminate him from the White House. He has handlers now to present him to the public. Who will be his handlers in the White House to keep him looking and behaving “presidential?” This too is a worry.

Or, after he has pressed the fatal button, will he sit cross-legged on the ashes and with his silly grin on his face declare: “Didn’t you know, I was only being sarcastic?”

No, November 8th cannot come soon enough to hopefully remove this threat, not only from the United States, but from all of us who share this planet.