Eight years ago, in July 2016, I published the first political post of my blogging career, titled “Sam Harris on Trump vs. Clinton”. When I wrote it, I thought it would also be my last such post, for as I noted at the time, “For every political argument, there is an equal and opposite rebuttal.”
I still feel that way, but now, in 2024, Donald Trump is once more running for President, which clarifies matters for me. I believe that one cannot be a good president without first being a good person, and that Donald Trump is perhaps the most deeply flawed human being ever to hold that office.
Whether or not that’s true, I have no wish to write a lengthy polemic about Trump myself, and so once again, have decided to let someone else speak for me. I am happy to introduce readers of this blog to my friend Bill McIntyre, who, like Sam Harris, is very well informed and speaks articulately about some of the risks of a second Trump term. When asked, Bill immediately agreed to write the following essay.
Many thanks, old friend.
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Foreign policy concerns rarely drive national elections, but in the upcoming election, perhaps they should. On May 10, 2017, four months after he was inaugurated as president, Donald Trump met in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, in a visit criticized in the press because he provided them with highly classified intelligence information. According to the Washington Post, “A Russian photographer took photos of part of the session that were released by the Russian state-owned Tass news agency. No U.S. news organization was allowed to attend any part of the meeting.”
Since then, Trump has continued to be openly friendly with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Three days ago, he met with Hungarian President Viktor Orbán. This morning Orbán announced that if Trump is elected president, he (Trump) will not provide any military aid at all to Ukraine. Trump has not in any way attempted to deny that report.
Now Trump opposes a bipartisan move to shut down TikTok if it doesn’t divest itself of its Chinese ownership. The problem is that Chinese law openly requires Chinese companies to assist intelligence agencies in that country when requested. So if Trump’s wishes prevail, China could access the private information of hundreds of millions of American teenagers and adults who use the TikTok app.
Revenge always has been – and continues to be – at the center of Donald Trump’s approach to governing. Ukraine did not provide him with an investigation into the Bidens when Trump tried to extort that during a July 25, 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, by withholding military aid unless it happened. Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives after that incident but was not convicted in the Senate. He obviously holds a very large grudge against President Zelensky that blinds him to the very real danger of a nuclear war between our country and Russia if Ukraine is defeated.
Trump has switched positions on TikTok from when he was president. Then he opposed allowing the app to continue operating in the U.S. as a Chinese owned company. Now he takes the opposite position. His reason: getting rid of TikTok in the U.S. will make Facebook stronger, and Facebook refused to support his lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Trump’s attitudes toward Ukraine and TikTok can be dismissed as childish, which they are. But basing foreign policy decisions on such grievances, instead of on what will protect America’s foreign policy and military interests in the world, is a recipe for a third world war.
Vladimir Putin has openly declared that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century. His invasion of Ukraine was the first step in the process of reconstituting the Soviet Empire. We have no treaty obligations to Ukraine. They ask only military aid from us. If Putin defeats Ukraine, Poland is the next country to its west that Putin’s Red Army will invade to reconstitute another chunk of the old Soviet Empire. We have treaty obligations to treat an attack on Poland as we would an attack on our own territory. An invasion of Poland will result in a direct conflict between the Russian and American armies, in other words in World War III, which would turn into a nuclear war once Russian forces became overwhelmed by the combined armies of the 32 NATO countries.
China is another country with a huge nuclear arsenal. It wants to conquer Taiwan, a U.S. ally, just 100 miles across the Taiwan Strait from China, and it is watching our resolve in Ukraine to see how much opposition we would put up to an invasion of Taiwan, an invasion that could result in a nuclear war between our country and China. It also wants domination of the South China Sea, which is also bordered by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. The Philippines is an American ally. The chances for a future nuclear war with China are quite high.
There are a multitude of reasons why Donald Trump should not be elected president in 2024. Avoiding nuclear war is perhaps the strongest one.
William J. McIntyre, M.D.
Derrick's Blog 