Reducing Conflict, With, Or Without Trump

THE SHEER AMOUNT of conflict in the world is appalling. The wars, strife of various sorts, not to mentnion disasters, mass migrations and hunger, are shocking. Any decent person wants to help mitigate all of it. Spending the next four years opposing, resisting, and trying to get rid of Donald Trump hardly seems like an avenue to that end. It sounds more like conflict than reduction of conflict. And yet, it is the way to reduce conflict, because Trump is a one man conflict factory, which must be shut down. Look...even if, even in the highly unlikely event that Trump's policies as president are beneficial to the country, the world, and the American people, it is a simple, basic moral fact that nobody, but nobody, as morally depraved and legally challenged as Trump should ever be allowed or elected to be president, much less dog catcher. Anybody currently involved in more than four thousand lawsuits and who has been convicted of dozens of felonies hardly seems qualified to lead the world's most powrful nation in the directinon of peace, law, an order, peace within itself, and peace with the rest of the world. However, while opposing Trump, one must offer a better way, a more cooperative, peaceful way. For instance, one might advocate for providing a pathway to citizenship for all undocumented, illegal immigrants who work, and obey the law, rather than deporting them. Reduce conflict, stress, and economic hardship, for the whole nation. Oppose Trump, offer and provide a better way. It should be interesting to see whether Trump actually ends the Russian war against Ukraine his first day as president like he promised. Trump presents himself as a great man who brought peace to the world in his first term, and will do it again in his second.. We certainly hope he can and does, but,to put it mildly, we are skeptical. It is extremely important for those who oppose Trump, the millions who hate Trump and want Trump gone, to give him credit if and when he says or does anything which is true and makes sense, or which is beneficial, beneficial to the country and the world, not merely to himself. Deciding in advance that everything somebody, including Trump, says and does in the future will be stupid, false, and harmful, merely because you passionately hate the person and everything he or she has ever done is stupid, false, and harmful, is counterproductive. Loss of objectivity, loss of open mindedness and tolerance, is never beneficial, to anyone. What if Donald Trump suddenly, inexplicably turns into a morally pure and noble well educated honest articulate genius, and just as suddenly ceases to be the criminally insane pathologically narcissistic and dishonest reprobate that he is and has always been? Unlikely, yes, but not impossible. Alien abduction and mind altering intervention, maybe. In such an unlikely but remotely possible scenario, pretending that Trump hadn't changed would be nonsensical, denial. One can simultaneously oppose Trump, working to end his political career, poste haste, while working for the improvement of the world. Those two objectives are not only not mutually exclusive, they are highly compatible. There are two people on this planet who, arguably, could do the world a lot of good merely by passing away. They are Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. The arguments are well known to all, and are not hard to make or difficult to articulate and explain. Opposing Trump will probably become an exercise in identifying false assertions and harmful actions by him, protesting vehemently against them, and, lord willing, mitigating or even reversing them and their harm caused. If Trump starts trade wars, deports millions of people, lowers taxes on the wealthy, shrinks the national parks and leases federal land for oil and coal production, cuts social spending, he'll hear about it from millions of people, stridently. The damage Trump is soon to do will be shocking, staggering. If protesting with words doesn't help, there will be many people, probably millions, willing to stage mass protests against Trump in the streets. Trump will doubtless be extremely very active from his first day in office, while he has Republican majorities in both houases of Congress. All of the above policies, which Trump has openly advocated and promised, would be harmful to the United States, the world, and the American people, and should, and will be strenuously opposed. Preisely how he intends to end the war in Europe on his first day in office is a fascinating question, which will soon be answered, one way or another. One thing is for sure: if he fails to keep this promise he should be excoriated vigorously by the American people, and the rest of the world.