Would Trump really nuke the North Koreans and get rid of the Mexicans?

So what will happen if Donald Trump becomes President. 

For my part I do need to let readers know that I am not a fan of Donald Trump. It would be wrong to write an article on a man you don’t like and not disclose the fact. But, read on, because even though I don’t like what he stands for he does, nonetheless, have the right to run for President. After all, democracy is all about letting people have a voice. 

The truth is there no reference point for someone like Donald Trump becoming President of the most powerful western democracy on the planet. In actual fact if he does become President it will be the first time a celebrity business man has made the transition from reality television star to the leader of the free world. Of course, you could argue that Reagan was such a person but his ascendancy to the Presidency began well before he actually ran. 

He was first Governor of California of course. Others can argue that John F Kennedy was somewhat of a celebrity candidate having come from a rich and powerful family but not even that comes close to the circumstances of Donald Trump. 

Trump, for the most part, is a successful businessman and reality television star. It’s not a lie to suggest he has a larger than life personality but to suggest he has always been a success would be a lie. He has faced financial ruin before and ask many people in Atlantic city and they will tell you that his casino business was anything but a success. But, on balance, it is hard to get away from the fact he is wealthy and most others are not. 

Now that he is the presumptive nominee for the Republican party it is worth looking at what he has said and what he might end up doing if he win’s office. But, before we do that we need to take a look at why he has resonated with a largely disaffected voter base. In all reality the fact is the general public right around the world are sick and tired of business as usual politicians. 

In the Philippines a new President is about to be sworn in who doesn’t exactly have a great track record. As mayor of Davao City Rodrigo Duterteonce said of a murder victim who had been raped that surely the “Mayor should have been first in line”. In Australia the people are about to go to the polls to elect a new Federal Government and the incumbent Malcolm Turnbull might see himself out of power for no other reason than the general population are tiring of false promises. In Canada the rise of Justin Trudeau is yet another example of where business as usual politicians are duds.  

So, the rise of both Sanders and Trump is an indication that significant numbers of voters are sick and tired of business as usual because in any ones real world neither candidate would have been given a look in had the politicians had have delivered what they said they would.

 Even Speaker of Congress, Paul Ryan, who has failed to back Trump to date has gone from darling of the tea party movement to pariah – a same old same old usual suspect otherwise known as a Washington insider. 

Back to Trump and the things he has said he would do if elected: 

1. Build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it. It just won’t happen. Mexico is hardly going to spring for a wall that it doesn’t want nor needs. In actual fact the rest of the world would decry a first world nation putting that sort of pressure on a third world developing country. Notwithstanding the claim of sending a whole lot of undocumented migrants back is one thing but to then convince Americans to do the jobs that they currently perform will be a stretch too far. Then there is the issue of what to do with the hundreds of thousands of children that have been born to undocumented migrants or who have grown up in the United States and are, themselves, undocumented. The cost of implementing a policy is more than just building a wall and also comes at a huge social cost. In actual fact it could run into the many tens of billions of dollars notwithstanding the fact many Americans would find it difficult to accept the night time and early morning raids of INS and border patrol officials to round the Mexicans up.

2. Printing money: the moment he told a reporter that if the US ever got into trouble that the Reserve could just print money Trump knew he shouldn’t have. The reality is that the US cannot get into a money printing game because all that would happen is interest rates would go up and for those many millions of Americans who are just meeting ends meet even a point five of a percent increase would send them to the wall. They are the very people who are being enticed to vote for Trump; that large rump of every day middle class Americans who have lost faith in the usual suspects. Had Trump made those sorts of comments while he was in office the markets would have tanked in reaction to the remarks. The last thing Trump would want while in office is to have those business credentials fall flat on their face by saying things that would cause a run on the markets.

3. Not letting Muslims in. Its just not going to happen. Let’s not mince words here. There is no conceivable way such a policy could be implemented let alone enforced. On the one hand the United States is a founding signatory to the international declaration on human rights that was championed by Eleanor Roosevelt all of those years ago and then there is the already selective nature of the statement. Trump has already said he would let the newly elected Muslim mayor of London into the United States. British Prime Minister David Cameron has already suggested that the idea is nonsense. Then there is the backlash in the United States and, if anything, the intelligence services and Homeland security would be telling Trump that the idea could lead to an uptake in home grown terrorism as more and more young Muslims become disaffected by the policy.

4. Giving China a right good telling off. Well, this is one policy that could make sense after all US Presidents have been doing it for decades. The difference is they have been doing things through the veil of diplomacy. Trump is likely to use a blunt instrument to drive the message home about China and its cyber hacking, the drama in the South China Sea and its economy. It’s less likely what he would do when it came to human rights though.

5. Russia, oh Russia. Well, if there is one President that could be mates with Vlad then this could be the one. Both are macho blunt operators. The difference between the two men is that Trump thinks he is more cunning. He’s not. In actual fact he has nothing on the former KGB agent who became President, then Prime Minister, then President again. Wiley old Vlad has been around long enough to know that people like Trump like the ego stroked a little and while they feel the love he quietly goes about his business. Vlad is intelligent, cunning and a smooth operator compared to Trump.

6. North Korea: I don’t think it would surprise anyone if Trump flipped the switch on all out nuclear war with North Korea. They are, after all, a little on the nutty side. The only thing stopping the North Koreans from going nuclear is they haven’t quite perfected a bomb yet and honestly, we don’t really know if they even have one. For all we know they packed a test site full of TNT to come up with same effect as a nuclear test. Would that stop Trump from going nuts on the nutters? Probably not.

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key summed Trump up when it came to a question he was asked about the Trans Pacific Partnership. He said something akin to the things we promise on the hustings are not always the things we do when in offices. Its up to anyone’s imagination to think what Trump would do. The entertaining thing is we just don’t know. The scary thing is, we just don’t know. But, after all is said and done he got to this point because millions of American’s preferred him over everyone else and even though I don’t agree with much of what he says he has a right to be here and a right to be heard. 

Its time for that four yearly reality check America. 

About the author: Matthew Tukaki is the editor of entrehub.org. you can follow him onTwitter here or on Facebook here