Not Just Another Scandal, Not Just Another Spat: It's Treason

The FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago was more damning than any of us could have ever imagined.

Even if we are being charitable to Trump in this situation, which I am not inclined to do, he was inexcusably careless with America’s most valuable military assets: our nuclear weapons and information about America’s nuclear weapons.

To give you an understanding of just how serious this is, people have been executed for messing around with America’s nuclear secrets. Just ask Julius and Ethel Rosenberg how committing espionage with our nuclear arsenal went for them in 1953.

They got executed via the electric chair.

In our country, death sentences are handed down for one of two crimes.

Murder and treason.

I doubt even if several miracles happen in a row that Trump will get the death penalty or even life imprisonment for this, but this should put to bed any idea that Trump is not a traitor.

His actions have proven over and over again that he is a traitor.

To be clear, this situation is incredibly grave. As many fundamental policy disagreements that I may have with Vice President Dick Cheney (and his daughter Representative Liz Cheney), President George W. Bush, and especially the late Senator John McCain, I would not call any of them traitors.

In the Divine Comedy, Dante reserves the lowest level of hell for traitors. These people are condemned to freeze in ice in some capacity for all of eternity. Along with traitors to kin are traitors to their country in the bottommost part of hell.

But to understand what Trump was doing, it is important to understand what kind of information Trump was trading in.

Nuclear Weapons

Any sane government both wants and dreads nuclear weapons. They are the ultimate deterrent—an ace in the hole, the trump card, the ultimate last resort.

The best way to describe nuclear weapons is the equivalent of waking up Godzilla. This is known on TV tropes as the Godzilla Threshold, a weapon or method you never touch unless you absolutely have to.

Nuclear weapons are unprecedented in their ability to kill millions of people in the blink of an eye, flatten cities in a matter of seconds, and end the world in a matter of minutes.

Keep in mind that the atomic bombs that vaporized hundreds of thousands of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki while annihilating both cities are mere firecrackers compared to the weapons of Armageddon we possess now.

But in a nuclear attack, the lucky ones are vaporized immediately. Those who survive the immediate explosion either burn to death, die from other injuries such as cuts or broken bones, or die a horrifying death via radiation poisoning.

These weapons are what made the Cold War so terrifying.

At the same time, these devastating weapons are what deter others from using similar weapons against the United States. Our adversaries not knowing about how these weapons work is key to our security.

Trump, through either carelessness or greed, compromised the security of secrets that can end the world, secrets that are essential for the free world’s protection.

Put it another way, Trump has left us vulnerable in the worst way possible—the worst type of treason.

Treason

Treason is betraying one’s country.

Even in ancient times, what was understood as treason was treated with the utmost severity because treason threatens the very survival of the state itself.

Typically, it’s historically dealt with by death or exile. Today, it can result in a life sentence.

Experience has taught me to assume the worst concerning Donald Trump. So until otherwise, I am operating with the assumption he attempted to sell secrets to our adversaries, specifically Saudi Arabia and Russia. Thanks to how careless he is, there is a good chance other adversaries like Iran and China got their hands on this information.

I cannot emphasize enough just how serious this is.

Passing national security secrets is a classic act of treason.

Unprecedented and Beyond Partisan Politics

Dick Cheney did a lot of shady things as Bush’s vice president. He played a large role in starting a war in Iraq and probably had more than a few corrupt dealings.

Large numbers of President Reagan’s administration helped to break the law by selling weapons to Iran to fund a guerrilla war against the Communist Sandinista government of Nicaragua.

President Nixon broke a lot of rules to cover up illegal actions his subordinates took at Watergate, being the only president in American history to resign from office as a result.

None of them would ever have crossed the lines that Trump did regarding our nuclear weapons. That is how not normal Trump was in regard to how he handled America’s nuclear arsenal and its secrets.

America’s security apparatus must go into damage control mode if it has not already, and more investigations must be conducted into who may have access to this information.

If people treat this as just another partisan spat, then we are in far worse trouble than I thought.

Stay safe, everyone.