Dear Rebecca:

I’m not, strictly speaking, “pro-life,” but I have a lot of sympathy for my pro-life friends. I understand why they think abortion is murder, and while I’ve decided there are also real and important issues of women’s freedom and health to be considered as well, I’ve never really had it in my heart to fight about this. For somebody who considers themself, ultimately, “pro-choice,” I’m about as sympathetic to pro-life folks as you can possibly get.

I even understood why evangelicals were big fans of Donald Trump, despite the fact his life and habits appear ignorant of Christianity at best and hostile to its moral precepts at, well, also best. It was abortion. And the Supreme Court. Everything else zeroed out for such folks. OK. I get it. I’m not going to persuade you to vote for Hillary.

But.

To my mind, the problem with Donald Trump was never merely ideological. I don’t like his stances on many issues, but we’ve survived Republican governance before. What troubled me was his temperament. He’s a narcissist verging on nihilism — I see no public evidence that he’s interested in the existence of a universe that doesn’t center around him.

Before the election I wrote this:

Understand: Probably all politicians (and writers) are narcissistic to an embarrassing degree. The smart ones put that self-regard to the service of a broader agenda, one that benefits the people that they represent.

The, uh, less smart politicians have a two-year-old’s sense of object permanence, unable to see past the irritation in front of them to take the long view. And that leads to trouble.

With Trump, we know. We know exactly what we’re getting and … we know exactly how that story ends.

And, separately, this:

Trump has shown little evidence that he knows much about the issues facing American policymakers and doesn’t seem to care to know. His instincts are not just dangerous but perhaps catastrophic: Joe Scarborough reported this week that Trump had asked a foreign policy expert why America doesn’t use its nuclear weapons to solve international problems.

“And three times (Trump) asked about the use of nuclear weapons,” Scarborough said. “Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can’t we use them.”

There’s a reason the United States doesn’t use nukes so cavalierly: They are genocidally lethal. Using them would make other nuclear powers nervous and angry, increasing the likelihood of a war that could destroy this country — and a good portion of the world. Donald Trump should understand this. It is frightening that he doesn’t.

Which leads us to today:

President Trump threatened on Tuesday to unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea if it endangers the United States as tensions with the isolated nuclear-armed state grow into perhaps the most serious foreign policy challenge yet in his young administration.

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” Mr. Trump told reporters at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal state and as I said they will be met with fire and fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

Let’s review:

I believe the North Korean regime is evil. It inflicts suffering on its own people, and on occasion spreads violence to its neighbors. I do not wish it to possess a nuclear weapon and a rocket capable of delivering that weapon to the United States.

However…

The North Korean regime is regularly given to bombastic statements. The job of U.S. presidents has traditionally been to ratchet down the rhetoric, and thus the likelihood of devastating war.

Donald Trump, who never met a dick-measuring contest he didn’t elbow his way into, would rather satisfy that particular itch rather than be the adult and ratchet down the rhetoric.

I do not feel safer tonight.

And to bring this full-circle: Donald Trump may appoint the “right” justices for my conservative friends, but I have no reason to believe he possesses any ethic that is reasonably called “pro-life.” It is not pro-life to threaten nuclear genocide. And if you think abortion kills babies, you should see what a nuclear bomb can do.

This was foreseeable. Donald Trump was always going to be a horror show as president. Let us hope he doesn’t show his toughness all the way into helping create some of the worst horrors ever seen.

Related: National Interest, delete your account.

Fearfully,
Joel