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With 'fire and fury,' Trump revives fears about his possession of nuclear codes
 As with most things Trump, the furor over the "fire and fury" has divided the nation in two - those who believe the president is a loose launchpad, impulsively blurting whatever flits through his mind, and those who believe his inflammatory talk is a wily combination of politically savvy instincts and a gut-driven populism that simply aims to please. When President Donald Trump went off script Tuesday to deliver a startling threat to North Korea - "They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen" - it was as if the nation relived the most lurid themes of the 2016 campaign in one chilling moment. Last fall, Hillary Clinton's campaign used as one of its final weapons a TV ad featuring a longtime nuclear missile launch officer who warned against voting for Trump: "I prayed that call would never come. Self-control may be all that keeps these missiles from firing." Then, quick-fire, a series of clips of Trump on the stump: "I would bomb the s--- out of them." "I want to be unpredictable." "I love war." "The thought of Donald Trump with nuclear weapons scares me to death," Bruce Blair, the retired launch officer, says in the ad. "It should scare everyone." It very nearly did: Voters made clear last fall that they trusted Clinton vastly more than Trump on the use of nuclear weapons - by 57 percent to 31 percent in a Fox News poll in October, for example. But Trump voters often said that their reasons for supporting him outweighed their sense that he could be dangerously impulsive - and they repeatedly expressed confidence that the national security apparatus would keep him in check. A lot more at link. Posted by: Seeking cure for ignorance 2017-08-10 |
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