Donald Trump just kicked a hornet's nest in the Middle East.
A few days ago, the United States, via a drone strike, assassinated the head of the Iranian military's Quds Force. To understand the significance of this, imagine if a hostile foreign nation assassinated a high-ranking US general or admiral. Not only that, but one who was deeply admired and respected by the public. The Iranian government is predictably pissed off about this, and is sure to respond. How exactly it will do that is unknown, but Iran has a lot of possibilities, ranging from a cyber attack to disrupting the global oil supply by choking off the Strait of Hormuz to terrorist attacks against US overseas installations. But there's sure to be some form of retaliation, and even a restrained Iranian response could inflict significant damage. Perhaps even a war.
And this was all set in motion by a man with no long-term strategy, no contingency plans for what might happen next, no national security staff in place to handle the crisis, and no interest or understanding of the world around him.
This is why a president doesn't make seat-of-the-pants decisions. A good president, anyway. The job of leading the nation is unimaginably complex, and in reality a president has very little power. There's very little room to maneuver on just about any issue without nudging something else off in a direction you don't want it to go. Sure, a lot of those concerns turn out to be overblown - many of the worst-case "what ifs" the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations had about America supporting France/getting directly involved in Vietnam ended up not coming to pass, and the chances of them occurring were far less likely than any of those presidents believed them to be. But presidents don't have a crystal ball, though, so it's important to carefully consider the consequences of any given decision.
(For example: Saudi Arabia. We all know eleven of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers came from that country, and there's good reason to believe that the Saudi Royal Family had advance knowledge of the plot. Maybe they even provided logistical support. So if anybody deserves an American ass-kicking, it's probably them. But what happens next? Say the US finally does target Saudi Arabia. Really bombs the shit out of it, to the point that we even wipe out the rats and cockroaches. Where does that leave our country? America still depends a lot on Saudi oil, despite efforts over the past few years to develop alternatives. That oil supply dries up if we attack them, which would harm our economy and our day-to-day lives in a big way. And that's why the US hasn't attacked Saudi Arabia in retaliation for 9/11.)
Of course, maybe nothing bad will happen. Maybe cooler heads will somehow prevail, and aside from a little chest-thumping rhetoric from both sides, things will revert to the status quo. Maybe. I don't have a crystal ball either.
Regardless, Trump's impulsive decision-making process isn't reassuring. At all. He's easily provoked and is more concerned about what kinds of headlines his policies and actions generate than the effects of those policies and decisions.
Not to mention the optics of trying to be a strong, decisive leader is a good way to distract from his impeachment.
And that's why you don't vote for a narcissistic, stubborn, willfully ignorant man-child to serve as president.
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