In about 24 hours, President Trump has gravely insulted allies Israel and Denmark, infuriated Jews by using anti-Semitic tropes about where their “loyalty” lies, blasphemed against Christianity by only somewhat jokingly adopting for himself the titles of “the Chosen One” and “King of the Jews,” and said that dictatorial Russia should re-join the now-G-7 nations of world economic leaders.
Where is that 25th Amendment when you need it? How does Section 4, on incapacity, work again?
The questions are only somewhat in jest.
On a slightly longer time frame, Trump has repeatedly threatened to undo one of the most effective uses of American military in history (against ISIS) by prematurely removing American personnel from Syria. He has dangerously endorsed North Korean missile tests that violate U.N. Security Council resolutions and the Singapore accords signed between the North and the U.S. last year.
Trump’s well-motivated but inept attempt to force an overthrow of the corrupt socialist government of Venezuela ended ignominiously. His trade wars are slowing the entire international economy in a way that reverberates back on us, making recession a real possibility. He has pointedly withheld meaningful verbal support from protesters in Hong Kong, much less those in Russia. He has repeatedly questioned the key mutual security pledge that holds the crucial NATO alliance together. He has made outrageous excuses for butchery by Saudi Arabia. And he has infuriated allies such as Great Britain and Australia, on multiple occasions, for no good reason.
Meanwhile, Trump’s two biggest campaign pledges, namely “fixing” the Mexican border and eliminating the U.S. trade deficit, are related to foreign policy as well. Both have been abject failures. In 10 months of this fiscal year, the number of illegal immigrants apprehended, 760,370, is already nearly twice the entire 12 months of the previous fiscal year, which in turn showed a nearly 25% increase from the 303,916 in fiscal 2017. Likewise, Trump’s trade bluster has hurt American exports, so that the national trade deficit hit an all-time record last year and has continued sky-high this year as well.
In sum, Trump’s volatility, ignorance, bullying nature, kowtowing to tyrants, shunning of allies, and monumental diplomatic clumsiness is leaving the entire world a more dangerous place, and leaving American international interests particularly endangered.
And now that his bizarre self-deification has gone public, it really may be time to ask: Is this man constitutionally fit for office?
