Best case scenario right now: Trump is deranged.
Because it’s either that or he’s stone-cold evil. Or both.
Our country’s news organizations can no longer afford to beat around the bush about this. An entire civilization lies in the balance.
I’ve written several times before about the urgent need to clearly identify Donald Trump as a deranged person, rather than as a normal president. My main argument is that when news organizations don’t explicitly explain that to their audiences, they are leaving out a crucial part of the story without which isolated incidents don’t make any sense at all.
And now it’s more urgent than ever. He is threatening to order the military to commit catastrophic war crimes.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump wrote this morning.
That is sick. And sickening. No rational, feeling human being would say something so vile.
But let’s say the news organizations do as I suggest. Let’s say they start to stipulate in their articles and newscasts that Trump, by almost any standard you can think of, is a seriously deranged man.
How does that change what they do?
It changes everything! Because now they are acknowledging that the country is an emergency situation: It is, inarguably, intolerable that our country is being led by a madman.
And that, in turn, must lead to aggressive and constant reporting about what can be done about it.
There’s almost no such reporting at the moment. Our top news organizations rarely mention the option of impeachment and removal, or the application of the 25th Amendment, or even his loyalists setting some limits. That’s for obvious reasons: In the current political climate, they are not remotely possible.
But that shouldn’t stop reporters from asking every person with power in any of the branches of government: Are you OK with the president of the United States — the commander in chief of the most powerful military in all of time, his finger on the nuclear button – being mentally deranged?
Every one of them should be put on the record.
For those who say he’s not deranged, ask them how they explain some of his recent comments? Starting with his threat to eradicate Iranian civilization.
And for those who are not OK with it, ask them: What are they going to do about it?
And keep asking.
Why? Because we are in a state of emergency. Even if the political climate is not ripe for Trump to be stopped in some way, the urgency is still there. It ought to be topic one.
And perhaps, over time, the political calculus would change? Maybe even suddenly.
It’s past time that our top news organizations overcame their aversion to stating blunt truths that might appear partisan to small slivers of their declining audiences.
This president is profoundly unwell and, therefore, must be stopped — somehow, no matter how unlikely it appears at this moment.
The Even More Urgent Question
I alluded to this in my April 2 column, but at this very moment the most urgent questions journalists should be asking are around the obligation and the ability of members of the military to refuse to commit war crimes.
They should ask every former member of the military: “What do you do in a situation like that?”
They should ask military experts: “What exactly should someone given an unlawful order do?”
They should ask what exactly Adm. Richard Correll, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, should do if Trump unlawfully orders him to attack Iran with nuclear weapons?
They should be asking members of Congress what is their advice to members of the military ordered to do clearly illegal and morally indefensible things?
They should ask experts in domestic and international law how likely it is that members of the military would be prosecuted for following unlawful orders and committing war crime, or even genocide?
They should ask everyone with any expertise what should bomber pilots do? What should the mission commander, the navigator, and the electronic warfare officer do?
News organizations really blew a key opportunity to address the core issues here after six members of Congress recorded a video in November reminding members of the military that they can and must refuse illegal orders. Trump was so incensed he accused them of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH,” and he ordered the Justice Department to indict them. (Which failed miserably.)
That video was produced as Trump began illegally bombing alleged drug boats off the coast of Latin America. That would have ben a good time to follow up by asking why those orders were not refused and why Trump was so threatened.
In fact, reporters should track down Admiral Alvin Hosley, who left his job as head of U.S. Southern Command in October, reportedly because he had concerns about the boat strikes. What does Hosley think should happen if members of the military are ordered to wipe out Iranian civilization?
There’s no time for a national discussion on these questions right now, but every news organization in the country should be helping equip members of the military with the knowledge they need about how to reject unlawful orders. It’s the right thing to do.