RUTHFULLY YOURS

Former secretaries of state and defense need to derail ‘classic demagogue’ and calm U.S. allies.

America faces grave threats from abroad. But with Donald Trump close to becoming the Republican nominee and possibly our next president, the most pressing danger to our national security comes from within. More than 100 Republican foreign-policy experts (including both of us) have already weighed in with an open letter, about the perils a Trump presidency would bring. Missing from the names on the letter, and distressingly silent in the debate, however, have been almost all of America’s senior statesmen — especially those who previously served in Republican administrations.

To be sure, a few top leaders have begun to speak out. Without wading into the political debate, retired four-star general Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA and CIA, has pointed out that the United States military would be obligated to disobey unlawful orders to torture and kill of the sort that Trump has said he would issue as president. Former secretary of Defense William Cohen has warned that military officers would face Nuremberg-style tribunals if they carried out Trump’s promised plans.

But illegal military orders are, sadly, only part of a much larger menace. Trump is a classic demagogue: He stokes fears and kindles prejudice. His divisive, sometimes violent rhetoric and appeals to racism and xenophobia would destroy the domestic tranquility on which our democracy depends. Beyond the damage it would do at home, a Trump presidency would unravel the American-led international order that has kept us secure since the end of World War II, an order built on alliances, freedom of the seas, respect for international law, defense of human rights, opposition to aggression, free trade, and support for democracy and the rule of law. Trump either does not understand the importance of these principles, is unaware of them or he simply does not care.

Trump has expressed contempt for America’s closest allies, whom he dismisses as parasitic freeloaders, and admiration for the authoritarian regimes that are now hard at work trying to undercut American foreign policy in regions across the globe. He is on record praising Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and offered him a backhanded defense from allegations that he ordered the murder of journalists, explaining, “I think that our country does plenty of killing, too.” As for the Chinese Communist regime’s murderous 1989 crackdown on student protesters, “that shows you the power of strength,” Trump mused.

Well before Donald Trump entered the race, there were lots of warning signs that the Republican party was on the road to perdition.

After the marathon 20 debates of 2012, with the ten or so strange candidates who brawled and embarrassed themselves, there had to be some formula to avoid repeating that mob-like mess. Instead, in 2016 there were 17 candidates and 13 debates along with seven forums. There were supposed to be tweaks and repairs that were designed to avoid the clown-like cavalcade of four years ago, but they apparently only ensured a repetition.

Three of the most experienced candidates, at least in the art of executive governance — Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, and Scott Walker — were among the first to get out. The most experienced government CEOs somehow (or logically?) performed poorly in the raucous debates and lacked the charisma or the money or at least the zealous followers of Cruz, Rubio, and Trump.

Or they had too much pride (or sense) — unlike Carson, Christie, Kasich, and Paul — to insist that they were viable candidates when fairly early on, by most measurements, they were not. How strange that those who would have been more credible candidates saw the writing on the wall and left the field — to those marginalized candidates who had no such qualms and ended up wasting months of their time and ours in splintering the vote, engaging in endless bickering on crowded stages, and ensuring that there were few occasions for any of them to distinguish himself. At some point, someone should confess that Democratic debates further Democratic causes far more than Republican debates help Republican causes.

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The other veteran governor in the race, Jeb Bush, may have felt, at 63 years old and eight years after the end of his brother’s administration, that his presidential ambitions — born in the pre-Trump-announcement days — were now or never. But after the failures of McCain and Romney, the hard left drift of the country, and the spectacle of utter chaos on the border, political correctness run amuck, the huge debt, Obamacare, and the implosion of the Middle East, primary voters were in no mood for another sober and judicious establishmentarian, however decent Jeb sounded. The unfortunate outcome of the 2016 Bush campaign and its affiliates was spending several million dollars to help destroy the candidacy of fellow Floridian Senator Marco Rubio. That did nothing for Bush and only further empowered Donald Trump. Never in all his business days has an enemy of Trump’s proved so helpful to him.

Then there was the strange career of Chris Christie. His campaign was an odd mixture of bullying and New Jersey tough-guy schtick with temporizing and split-the-difference politicking in a year of take-no prisoners politics. His bluster was Trumpian, but he was no Trump-like showman — and he ended only with another destructive legacy of tearing down others without helping himself. His mean-spirited candidacy confirmed that his 2012 ill-timed hug of President Obama in the hours before the election was no accident. His gratuitous attack on Rubio — followed by his obsequious lapdog role with Trump (who does not suffer toadies gladly) — proved kamikaze-like, blowing up the attacker while damaging somewhat his target.