An Inconvenient Comparison and an unavoidable Concession
While endless PhD dissertations and internet autopsies will dissect this low point in American history we must accept certain bottom line assessments:
While there are many good and many intelligent people in this country the government's power and leadership does not inherently fall in the parameters of "good" or "intelligent".
I am struck how the theoretical visitor from another planet would see many comparisons between the US and Islamic Republic of Iran. Both have elections but neither have direct democratic elections. Both have extreme divisions between hyper religious rural areas and highly educated urban populations with hard working and stable middle class populations. Iran prevents direct elections by means of a cleric class that restricts but does not control democratic elections while the US has an electoral college and a Senate that gives extreme weight to rural areas where clerics "control the herd".
Both have elected unstable, irresponsible and dangerous populists (Ahmadinejad/Trump)
I am not anti Persian. I assisted 5,000 Iranians trapped outside of Iran at the time of the Revolution find new homes in the US and other countries in Thailand in the 1980s. If I am in an airport and see someone I think might be from Iran waiting for a plane I will try and engage them and have been rewarded with many interesting and vigorous discussions.
I have to agree however with those that have concluded that the Government of Iran doesn't have the maturity to control the immense lethal destruction of a nuclear bomb. There is simply too much extremism, volatility and instability to allow for the possibility.
I also don't want to diminish the horror that still exists in parts of the Iranian Revolutionary movement including the persecution of religious groups like the Baha'i or to over do the comparison between the two countries as we still have constitutional safeguards which have successfully prevented our religious extremists from going too far.
My point is simply that the election has brought the comparison between the two countries much closer, too close.
It is close enough that we must now accept that whatever the baseline level for an acceptable level of maturity, wisdom, restraint, intelligence, truthfulness or comity that must exist as a minimum requirement for a nuclear power that we have slipped way below that line.
When we all agreed that Mr. Trump did not have the disposition to hold the nuclear codes (even among many of his supporters) and he is still elected President we must now face that there are two variables in that premise and if Trump in fact gets the office then the only responsible alternative is that we remove the nuclear codes.
The United States should now undertake the necessary steps to remove its nuclear capability. With our advanced tactical "smart" weaponry we don't need them to land a bomb in a leader's bedroom or the command center for an army.
For the same reason that we object to Iran holding a nuclear arsenal the US must now accept that it no longer sits at the adult table and that those sitting at the kids table should not leave nuclear weapons for people with the temperament of 7th graders. The US must unilateral get rid of its nuclear arsenal with all deliberate speed.
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