Tag: Taiwan

Trump likes incompetence and chaos

Marco Rubio and Michael Waltz, the projected Secretary of State and National Security Advisor respectively, are fig leaves. Trump proposed them first to hide the ugly reality that followed.

Lowering the bar

His aim is to name people who will make him seem normal. This is difficult. He is a rapist and convicted felon who improperly stored classified material and imperiled US security. As President, Trump cozied up to Putin and incited a riot against the 2020 election result. He ran his businesses in ways that infringed on legal requirements and drove them into bankruptcy.

In this context, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Matt Gaetz fit well.

Gabbard, the nominee for Director of National Intelligence, is also a Putin sycophant and flak for Syrian President Assad.

Hegseth, the Fox News nominee for Defense Secretary, is a Christian nationalist and womanizer. He has no visible qualifications for the job except service in the Army as a major. The US Army has more than 16,000 of those.

Kennedy, nominated to lead Health and Human Services, is a flake. His “Make America Healthy Again” website doesn’t bother with discussion of the issues he is interested in. It goes straight to selling swag. In his bio, it highlights his environmental activism, entirely out of tune with Trump. But he is an anti-vaccine activist as well, claiming that all he wants is good scientific data. But he ignores the excellent scientific data already available on vaccines.

Matt Gaetz has sex with underage women, some of whom he pays for the privilege. His nomination for Attorney General was worthy of Trump. Sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein claimed Trump made a sport of sleeping with his friends’ wives. Gaetz has now withdrawn his name. Maybe Trump will give him a position that doesn’t need confirmation.

Normally when a nomination doesn’t succeed a president will pick someone less prone to controversy. I suppose the choice of Pam Bondi, former Florida Attorney General, might be seen that way. But she is ethically challenged and may not stand up well under intense scrutiny.

Exaggerating what he can do

While lowering the bar for personnel, Trump is also boasting about the incredible things he will achieve. He aims to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. His billionaire friends will cut trillions in government expenditure. He will end the Ukraine war in 24 hours.

Much of this is not going to happen. Here too Trump is setting a bar. While on personnel he sets it low, on policy he sets it high. The moves he favors on immigrants and government expenditure will generate thousands of lawsuits. The stimulus to the legal profession will be unprecedented.

The result will be chaos, something Trump enjoys. He will use it to claim extraordinary powers for the presidency. He disdains democracy and seeks unfettered power. The current Supreme Court majority, which has already given him immunity from prosecution for official acts, will back him wholeheartedly.

Encouraging international chaos

On the foreign policy front, it is harder to predict the outcome. But let’s try.

If Trump ends military aid, Kyiv will have to negotiate an unsatisfactory outcome with Moscow. The result will be partition. Russia will keep most of the territory it occupies now. The Europeans will have to patrol a demilitarized zone. And rump Ukraine will face a prolonged period of instability as the Russians wage hybrid warfare against Kyiv.

Irredentist ambitions will explode worldwide. Serbia will aim to gain territory in the Balkans. China will continue its expansion in the East and South China Seas, and set its sights on Taiwan. Russia will try for Moldova and Georgia. India and Pakistan may go at it over Kashmir. Israel will annex whatever it wants of the West Bank and Gaza.

There are about 150 outstanding border disputes worldwide. Even if only a handful get worse, the international community will have a hard time managing them.

The President can impose tariffs without Congressional approval. They will re-ignite inflation in the US and have a devastating effect on the US and world economies. That will cause the Fed to slow the decline of interest rates, or maybe raise them again. Other countries will retaliate against US goods, slowing the US economy further. Even without the tariffs, the US expansion that started with Obama

A difficult four years

Trump will relish this chaos as well. But it is not good for the United States, which can barely manage one serious crisis at a time.

The current US expansion started during Obama’s presidency, in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Except for the COVID-19 recession Trump aggravated with an inept response to the epidemic, it has continued unabated since. Even without Trump’s chaos, the expansion would be unlikely to last much longer.

We are in for a difficult four years. Tighten you seat belt.

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Trump’s first foreign policy failure

I find it hard to cheer the widening of any war. But President Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to strike deeper inside Russia is an exception. It has become necessary in response to Moscow’s persistence in pursuing its invasion despite colossal losses.

I am not really cheering the move. It’s more like recognizing its grim necessity.

The gains are small but the losses are big

The Russians have advanced, albeit marginally, over the past year, mainly in Donbas. The gains in 2024 amount to less than 1% of Ukraine’s territory. The advances since 2022 have cost around 700,000 Russians killed and wounded, according to the Ukrainians. Russian military casualties are now estimated at around 40,000 per month. That’s why President Putin doesn’t want to mobilize Russians again. They are souring on his war.

The losses on the Ukrainian side are no doubt large as well, though not the 700,000 or so Moscow claims. Russia is simply mirroring the number projected in the West for its own losses. But Ukraine before the war had a population of about 37 million. Russia’s was almost four times that number. In a war of attrition, Russia has more bodies to throw at Ukraine than Ukraine has to throw at Russia. And more elite political willingness to accept those losses. Putin doesn’t tolerate dissent.

Russia also continues to attack civilians and civilian infrastructure using drones and missiles. To judge by news reports, Ukraine’s attacks on civilians are minor by comparison.

Escalation but will it make a difference?

Biden’s decision apparently applies to MGM-40 Army Tactical Missile System (aka ATACMs) with a range of about 190 miles. It is reportedly limited for now to countering Russian advances in Kursk oblast, which the Ukrainians invaded in August. The decision responds to the deployment there of North Korean troops in support of the Russian army.

Moscow is portraying this deployment as adding fuel to the fire. That is a reasonable assessment, but the fire will not be in Ukraine. Most of the gigantic country remains beyond their range. The ATACMs can however reach a lot of military targets inside Russia. Whether that is a game changer, or they are too little too late, is unclear for now.

What is clear and what isn’t

The Ukrainians and Russians are racing for gains against the January 20 deadline in the US. Both expect President Trump, once inaugurated, to try to force a negotiated settlement to the war. Reports suggest he would require Ukraine to cede, at least temporarily, Russian occupied areas. It would also commit Kyiv to not joining NATO for decades.

That would be a one-sided settlement in favor of Moscow. And it would need the Europeans to deploy peacekeepers to guard a demilitarized zone between the two sides.

None of the parties will find the Trump idea attractive. Putin seems ready to reject it. He wants all of Ukraine permanently within the Russian sphere of influence and outside NATO. The Europeans, who have failed at peacekeeping between Israel and Lebanon, won’t want to do guard a demilitarized zone. Ukrainian President Zelensky doesn’t want to cede territory or be barred from NATO.

That doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Trump will threaten to withhold aid to Ukraine. The Europeans won’t compensate Kyiv and will want to limit the Russian advance. Putin is facing increasing economic and popular pressure at home. Zelensky may get boxed in.

Partition has consequences

The consequences of decades-long partition will be tragic. The Russians will insist on Zelensky’s removal, or defenestrate him at the first opportunity. Western investment in Ukraine will dry up. Its economy will shrivel. People will emigrate. Moscow proxies will take over, as they have in Georgia and Chechnya. Putin will have won.

Partition of Ukraine will echo elsewhere. Serbia will see it as an opportunity to take northern Kosovo. Republika Srpska will try to secede from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Irredentist ambitions worldwide will flower. China will want to assert sovereignty over Taiwan. Israel will annex the West Bank and northern Gaza. Dozens of border disputes in other regions will exacerbate.

Trump’s partition of Ukraine will be his first but not his only foreign policy failure.

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Americans, welcome to the 4th Reich!

J. F. Carter, US Army (ret LTC) 1968-1992, United Nations (ret D-1) 1992-2009, and European Union (ret D-1) 2009-2011, writes:

I hope I am wrong. But if Trump and his acolytes implement even 1/3 of the promises and projects he has set forth in Project 2025 and otherwise supported, the USA, as we knew it, will become a dying ember. He will sacrifice our honor, pride and principles on his transactional altar.

His isolationist foreign policy will relegate the US to a bit player to be ignored or pushed around.

Ukraine and Taiwan abandoned

Ukraine and Taiwan will be the first victims of his failure to stay resolute.

Imagine The Greatest Generation refusing to come to protect the sovereignty of European and Asian nations during World War II. Our nation would not have risen to the pinnacle of its success and power had our forefathers not accepted their responsibilities. They would have been guilty of sacrificing the lives of tens of millions of people due to sheer cowardice.

The ripple effect

Failure to back Ukraine and Taiwan will lead to further Russian encroachments. These will include Moldova, Georgia, and the Baltics. They will also affect Central Europe as well as Chinese control over Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Our EU and Asian allies will lose all confidence in our nation. He will unchain Israel. The reaction by the surrounding countries will fan the flames of a regional conflict. Trump’s transactional approach will bring about another Balkan conflict leading to a Greater Serbia aligned with Russia.

Russia rescued

Putin and gang are breathing a huge sigh of relief. They are congratulating themselves for their flood of misinformation and disinformation pushing voters toward Trump. What a reversal of fortunes, just as Putin and Russia were facing economic and political disaster.

Some might welcome an end to the fighting between Russia and Ukraine. But remember, that the Russia violated the terms of the Minsk Agreements of 2014-2015. Putin used that agreement as a temporary pause to relaunch his second invasion of Ukraine in 2021. Any future agreement would allow Russia to rebuild to attack not only Ukraine but also Moldova and Georgia.

The domestic agenda: (in)justice

For those more interested in Trump’s domestic agenda, read the provisions of Project 2025, which outlines his plans. They essentially would undermine the foundations of our democracy and economy.

– Perhaps the most venal proposal is to replace professional civil servants in the government with party hacks. This is the case in Russia, China, Hungary, and other authoritarian regimes. Trump will use executive authority to impose personnel in the Departments of Justice, State, and Defense as well as the FBI and National Security Agency. There will no longer be any professional objectivity. He will sacrifice to party loyalty, reminiscent of German Nazis and Russian/Chinese Communist Party control.

– Trump will use such control to persecute anyone who opposes him. These are the people he calls the “enemy within,” an oft used Nazi tactic in the 1930s and 1940s. He would go after Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, General Milley, and others. His likely pick for US Attorney General has already suggested that New York State Attorney General Trish James be sent to prison.

Trump is likely to replace Supreme Court Justice Thomas with Eileen Cannon, a judge for the District Court of Florida. She slow walked and created obstacles to Trump’s prosecution for illegal possession of classified documents. Trump may be able to walk away from his 34 cases of felony fraud as we as the charges of sexual assault. Equal justice before the law does not seem to apply to Trump.

Trump has said he will pardon those found guilty of federal crimes associated with the January 6 riot, which he fomented.

The domestic agenda: the economy

– The economy was one of the major reasons for Harris’ defeat, though the US economy out-performed all other major industrialized nations after the epidemic. The public focused however on short term inflation issues rather than the longer term picture.

The Trump economic policy will bring pain to all Americans. His tariffs will make you pay $2600 more per year for consumer goods. Not to mention the impact on our national debt.

The domestic agenda: immigration

If that doesn’t kill our economy, then his plan for mass deportations will. The immediate cost is some $80-250 billion a year, not to mention destroying labor required for agricultural fields, hospital care, and other lower level jobs. These folks also contribute to your Social Security. These costs, plus Trump tax cuts, will add trillions to the national budget and debt. How will he pay for it? Watch health, social security and education come under the hatchet! If you thought Covid was bad, wait until RFK Jr becomes Secretary of Health.

– Beware the presence of the “eminence grise” Elon Musk, whom Trump is expected to make his efficiency czar. Of course, efficiencies can and should be sought. However, with the fox in charge of the chicken coop, expect the Department of Education to be a victim, as well as Health and Welfare and Social Social Security.

– Directly related is my concern about the rise of plutocracy and the new oligarchs. Usually, we think of Russian oligarchs and their outsize influence on national politics. The Supreme Court ruling, Citizens United, empowered the ultra wealthy by allowing unlimited money to go into Political Action Committees. This directly undermines the principle of one person, one vote. With few exceptions, the oligarchs drive economic decisions without due concern to the average citizen. Musk now censors opinions on X that don’t match his views. With the high tariffs on China, his Tesla stocks will sky rocket.

The domestic agenda: society and environment

– Women, minorities and youth will be relegated to second class citizens. Women have fought back and won some abortion case issues in some states. Yet the misogyny and racism of MAGA will grow and The Handmaiden’s Tale might not be just an apocalyptic story.

– Let us not forget the environment. Trump will reverse whatever progress we have made. Air, land and water pollution will get worse, affecting our health and that of the rest of the world.

Angrier and more aggressive

Of course, I could be wrong. Trump might listen to his better angels. He might negotiate peace agreements in the Middle East and Balkans. He might actually compromise on some domestic issues and be inclusive of others.

But forgive me, if I doubt it. The doubts are based on his previous performance, which relied on divide and rule, attacking “others,” and undermining the rule of law and foundations of our government. He has gotten angrier, more aggressive, and more racist.

I, therefore conclude with a line from the Monk TV series. I may be wrong, but I don’t think so.

There will be buyer’s remorse. Americans, welcome to the Fourth Reich!

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Wrong and wrong, maybe wrong again?

I can’t think of anyone who deserves this less.

I could of course be wrong again. But that’s the gloomy picture I am seeing on the day after an election gone wrong.

I was 100% wrong about the outcome of this election. I expected Harris to win the battleground states. She lost them. I expected her to win the popular vote by a wide margin. It’s not yet clear, but it appears she lost it.

I should have known better

I spent the last week in deep red Hall County, Georgia, doing “voter protection” for the Georgia Democratic Party. That entails monitoring paper ballot processing as well as helping adjudicate ambiguously marked ballots. I also duplicated a few dozen so that the scanner can read them. This is done in cooperation with Republicans and County election officials. Yesterday I was a poll watcher in a precinct whose voters include both a retirement community and mostly Mexican immigrants. The electoral mechanism both in the county government center and at the polling place was professional, efficient, and thus boring.

The demographics were more interesting. Hall is a county of more than 42,000 people that depends heavily on two industries. Chickens are first. Medicine is second. Both industries use large numbers of Mexican immigrants. There are not many native-born Americans feeding and slaughtering the chickens or tending the bed pans. Nor I imagine would you get on well doing construction, another thriving sector, if you didn’t speak Spanish.

By the time I got to the polling center yesterday about 11 am the early rush was over. Mid-day belonged mainly to the retirees, many of whom looked like they were patrons of the medical center. The late afternoon saw a rush of mostly younger Mexican Americans. A young US-born Mexican American poll worker provided translation whenever needed. I observed no tension of any sort between the two demographics. The mostly retired poll workers were impeccably correct and helpful to the immigrants, all of whom were US citizens. I hope they all recognized the symbiosis between the two communities.

My precinct voted more than 60% for Trump. Symbiosis doesn’t extend to the ballot box. I have no doubt about where most of the Trump and Harris votes came from.

It’s identity politics

Trump has found a way to make voting for him a question of identity. His racist dog whistles were vital to his first election. His macho man displays are vital to this second, as they shifted male votes in his direction. I find both difficult to understand, as I don’t regard white, male identity as anything more than an arbitrary classification. You could just as well call me short and old, with much more physical evidence to back the claim. I’m not proud of being white, male, short, or old.

I am proud of being an American. To me, that means having lots of individual rights and collective responsibilities. During my lifetime, I have seen the rights expanded. Younger people, Blacks, Latinos, women, and LGBTQ Americans now enjoy far more freedom than they did in my 1950s childhood. It seems to me the responsibility of white males to adjust to those changes. “All men are created equal” is not ambiguous (even if it should now read “all people”). “Make America Great Again” is a slogan that appeals to those who want to return to segregated, male-dominated, heterosexual America. I don’t share that aspiration.

I expect Trump to try to fulfill many of his promises. He made them to cater to interest groups that own him. He will try to deport large numbers of undocumented immigrants and end asylum. As President, Trump will impose more tariffs, raising the cost of living and inducing retaliation by other countries. He will fire large numbers of civil servants. His allies in Congress will try to end abortion country-wide and repeal Obamacare. They will give more tax relief to the rich and burden the middle class. Trump will welcome cryptocurrencies and try to manipulate the Federal Reserve, undermining monetary stability. His Supreme Court nominees will be people prepared to adjust their jurisprudence to his policy preferences.

I could be wrong again

As bad as I think the re-election of Trump is for America, I fear it is worse for the world. Trump will do at least some of what he has promised. We will see an end to American support for Ukraine and surrender of part of it to Putin. That will encourage Russia to try again in Moldova or the Baltics. He will withdraw American troops from South Korea and Japan, encouraging them to get their own nuclear weapons.

The Balkans, which concern many of my readers, will not be top priority. But Trump’s re-election will encourage ethnonationalists throughout the region. If Ukraine is partitioned, why shouldn’t Serbia to try to capture northern Kosovo and Republika Srpska? Why shouldn’t Kosovo join Albania? Washington might even help. War will be a real possibility. Ethnic cleansing and state collapse will follow. All the while, the Trump family will be benefiting financially from Jared Kushner’s Saudi-financed investments in Serbia and Albania.

In the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will get Trump’s full support. The new Trump Administration will not restrain Israel in Gaza, the West Bank, or Lebanon. Trump will likely encourage military confrontation with Iran. That is the only option left to deter Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Trump will try to get the Saudis to recognize Israel. They will string him along. It remains to be seen whether they will accept Netanyahu’s “less than a state” for Palestine. That proposition is essentially the continuation of the status quo: one state with unequal rights. It is what many call “apartheid.”

I could of course be wrong again. But this is the gloomy picture I am seeing on the day after an election gone wrong.

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What happens if Trump wins?

Maybe a President Trump can join the would-be autocrats club in January

In many parts of the world, the answer is obvious. Trump has said he would strike a deal with Putin on Ukraine. That means surrender of at least Ukrainian territory Russia already controls. In the Middle East, Trump backs Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu 100%. That means Palestinians will be restricted to even smaller areas of the West Bank and Gaza. The prospects for a Palestinian state will be reduced to nil. In Asia, Trump has encouraged Japan and South Korea to get their own nuclear weapons. That, he hopes, will enable US withdrawal. Taiwan will be surrendered, sooner or later, to China.

But what about the Balkans? The region won’t be a priority for either a President Trump or a President Harris. She has said nothing so far as I know about the Balkans. But she is a vigorous rule of law defender of human rights. Trump has also said little about the Balkans, but we know what he did last time. We should expect more of the same.

President Harris: human rights and rule of law

Balkan policy under Harris will hopefully be consistent with her commitment to human rights and rule of law.

That implies keeping NATO and EU membership open, protecting individual rights, and fighting corruption. Consistency would require that American diplomacy return to opposing ethnic nationalism and promoting liberal democracy. Appeasement of President Vucic should decline, as should tolerance for the current Bosnia HiRep. He has backed ethnonationalists and opposed the pending European Court of Human Rights decision that undermines their hold on Bosnia. Interest in extending Kosovo’s sovereignty and countering corruption in Serbia and Albania should increase.

President Trump: partition and profits

In Trump’s first term, his Balkan envoy Ric Grenell favored partition of Kosovo. I am not among those who believe that he can become Secretary of State. But he could take Jim O’Brien’s place as Assistant Secretary for Europe. As soon as the partition option is opened again, it will spread. First to southern Serbia but then to Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, and southwestern Serbia (Sandjak). Populations will start moving. Violence will result.

Trump/Grenell will also favor the Balkan fortunes of son-in-law Jared Kushner. That means more appeasement of Serbia’s President Vucic and Albania’s Prime Minister Rama. Both of them have sought to line Trump’s pockets with real estate deals. No doubt they stand to gain as well, politically if not financially.

Sooner rather than later

I don’t think any of this will respect the diplomatic clock. If Trump wins, the changes will start quickly. Europeans will assume NATO is dead. Russia will too. In the Balkans, Vucic and Republika Srpska President Dodik will try to produce facts on the ground. They’ll leave the conference rooms for later. With NATO immobilized, Serbia could try to grab northern Kosovo and the RS can secede from Bosnia. This could all happen during the lame duck presidency, before the January 20 inauguration, or very soon thereafter.

The Biden Administration needs to prevent disaster on its own watch, if Trump is elected. The State and Defense Departments should be preparing now and forewarning the Balkanites, even before the election. EUFOR and KFOR should be prepared to counter partition moves in Kosovo and Bosnia. Plans for reinforcement should be ready. Even now, it would be a good idea to move more troops to Brcko, in northeastern Bosnia. Without Brcko, RS secession is improbable.

Later rather than sooner

If Harris wins, all of the above could still happen. But later rather than sooner, if she fails to correct the mistakes of the Biden Administration. A thorough review of Balkans policy is long overdue. It won’t be hard to discern why Biden couldn’t get anything more than ammunition for Ukraine from appeasing Serbia. Vucic is not embracing the West and won’t. Russia has infested his security services. His own ambition for a Serbian world is analogous to Putin’s Russian world.

The harder part will be correcting course. The EU and US need to lower ambitions for the Dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade. They need to raise the pressure on Belgrade and counter Russia’s malign influence there and in Montenegro. And Washington and Brussels need to strengthen the sovereignty and territorial integrity of both Bosnia and Kosovo.

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A true conservative would vote Harris

I don’t have a lot of Republican friends. That’s true. But for those Republicans I know identity is the reason for their attachment to that party. One was born into a family in Arizona in which no one had ever voted for a Democrat. Another, an otherwise first-rate political analyst, simply believes what Republicans say and doubts what Democrats say. He puts the burden of proof on his opponents.

Neither of these colleagues has ever before supported across-the-board tariffs or deportation of immigrants. They both pride themselves on not being racists. Yet they will vote for a candidate who wants to impose broad tariffs and deport millions. Trump is also a confirmed white supremacist and has promised to restrict minorities from moving to the suburbs. Republican identity trumps [pun intended] their policy preferences. It shifts the burden of proof, so here are some proofs.

The domestic issues

To be fair, traditional Republicans are in a difficult spot. The Republican party they knew and loved favored lower taxes and high defense expenditures. It has evaporated. Trump’s Republican party favors lower taxes only for the truly wealthy and abandonment of defense obligations.

Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush welcomed immigrants. Trump blames them for crimes they haven’t committed, as he did for the Central Park five. He wanted them executed, which is what he wants for immigrants who kill “Americans.” The five, all Black, were innocent.

Traditional Republicans do have reason to dislike Kamala Harris’ policy proposals. They fear extra spending for her housing, healthcare, education, and other “social” programs would explode the deficit. But they should be aware that the data is clear. Trump did that, even before the COVID-19 epidemic. Her spending proposals will have to pass in Congress. Trump’s promise of tariffs he can levy without Congressional approval

There is a decades-long history of lower percentage debt increases under Democratic than Republican presidents:

This is at least in part due to Republican control of one or both Houses of Congress. That’s a good reason for a Republican debt hawk to vote for some down-ballot Republicans. But it is not a good reason to vote for Trump.

Foreign policy

On foreign policy, the situation is even clearer. Both Trump and Harris are hawkish on China and protective of Israel. But Trump reached a trade agreement with China that Beijing didn’t implement. He did nothing to respond. The trade agreement also cost the US budget a great deal due to related agricultural subsidies. They continue. Trump would back Israel to the hilt. Harris wants to rein it in, provide humanitarian assistance to Palestinians, and prevent a wider war.

Trump has threatened to abandon allies in Europe and to end support for Ukraine. Harris backs the NATO allies and Kyiv. Most NATO members are now fulfilling their 2024 NATO commitment to spend 2% of GNP on defense. The big jumps came under Biden, after the Russian expansion of the Ukraine invasion. They did not come under Trump. Allied solidarity in supplying Ukraine has helped to counter Russia’s expansionist impulse and reduce the threat to other “frontline” states.

Putin’s Russia is an expansionist, imperial power trying to correct what it regards as history’s mistakes. If Moscow wins in Ukraine, it will try again in Moldova and eventually Poland and other former Soviet satellites. It is not exaggerating to say Ukrainians are dying to prevent Americans and Europeans from fighting.

Trump has encouraged South Korea and Japan to think about getting their own nuclear weapons. That he thinks would reduce US commitments in Asia. It is a truly bad idea, as it would leave Asian security at risk of a nuclear confrontation. The US would not control the outcome.

Trump has signaled he would not help defend Taiwan. China will take advantage of that signal. Biden’s expressed willingness to support Taiwan has arguably forestalled a Chinese effort to take it over.

If you are a true Republican, vote Harris

Half of Trump’s former cabinet secretaries are not supporting his re-election bid. Nor is his Vice President, about whose safety during the January 6 riot Trump was unconcerned. Former Vice President Cheney, a staunch conservative, and his also conservative daughter Liz are voting for Harris. So too is Mark Milley, Trump’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, along with hundreds of other retired generals. Milley regards Trump as “fascist to the core.”

Preventing Trump from doing what he has pledged to do should outweigh any remaining identity issues. A true Republican would vote Harris.

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