Opinion: Take it from conservative national security experts: Trump is unfit - WaPo Rubin
Four-times-indicted former president Donald Trump’s terrifying plans to assume dictatorial powers (and try for a third term), deploy the military against civil protesters, create a massive police state to carry out mass deportations and use federal power to exact revenge on his opponents should be enough to convince voters that his election would be a disaster for the United States domestically. However, returning him to the position of commander in chief and “leader of the free world” is just as scary on a global front. Don’t take it from me; just listen to two former senior Republican national security experts.
Former national security adviser John Bolton recently told Jordan Klepper of “The Daily Show” that his former boss “doesn’t understand alliances.” Bolton opined that Ronald Reagan would be “appalled” by the MAGA Republican Party, and added that Trump has a “fascination with authoritarian leaders.” Bolton also concurred with former secretary of state Rex Tillerson’s description of Trump as a “f---ing moron,” though Bolton refrained from using the expletive. (Klepper taunted Bolton for, after all that, saying he would vote for neither President Biden or Trump. “Great. So, in the race between a current president and a former president, it looks like the winner will be the Russian president.”)
Bolton has previously said of Trump: “He’s fundamentally ignorant, and he really doesn’t care about the facts. He thinks international relations are about personal relations, which is a line and approach that I can tell you, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are eagerly looking forward to.” Trump’s ignorance and overweening narcissism make him easy pickings for manipulative dictators. (Trump came to regard North Korea’s Kim Jong Un as a friend because he sent “love letters.” He turned over foreign signals intelligence to Russians in the Oval Office.) He is, in other words, a patsy for strongmen whose object is to weaken the United States.
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Gates went on to praise Biden for “putting together that three dozen countries willing to help Ukraine with money, with military assistance” and “being able to warn the allies before the Russians actually invaded so that when they did, we had enormous credibility with others, that we knew what we were talking about, and we knew the nature of Putin’s threat.”
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Biden likes to say, “Don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative.” In the case of foreign policy, according to hawkish Republican foreign policy gurus, the alternative to Biden is the candidate who wants to hobble NATO, sacrifice European allies to Putin, betray Ukraine, encourage the worst aspects of both the Saudi and Israeli governments, and do PR for North Korea, Hungary and every tinpot dictator who can flatter Trump. If you find these outcomes abhorrent, you cannot be indifferent to the outcome of the election.
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