Republicans need to corral Trump

My Irish Catholic mother taught me that "If you can't find something nice to say about someone then say nothing at all." So in due deference to my mother — Donald Trump's wife Melania seems nice and is certainly a beautiful woman. My father, a military judge would counsel me to say what I mean and mean what I say. So here goes.

Only a narcissist nutcase would find threatening nuclear war with the unstable regime of Kim Jong Un not enough to assuage his lust for dominance that he would draw in another nuclear worry — Iran. In an Oct. 13 speech from the White House, President Trump made clear that if Congress fails to impose more economic sanctions on Iran — which, according to most news reports is almost certain — he would unilaterally pull the U.S. out of the international agreement, a move likely to lead to a return to nuclear confrontation in the Middle East. The international backlash to Trump's speech was immediate and resounding, further undermining America's standing in global affairs and setting us on a course to possibly another nuclear confrontation.

[Trump ends key ACA subsidies, threatening insurance marketplaces]

This outrageous action follows President Trump's executive order that allows health insurers to sell short-term plans that don't meet the Affordable Care Act (ACA) guidelines, and stopping federal subsidies for low-income and high-cost patients. These actions will force higher premiums on health care insurance and ensure the demise of the ACA. He did this not out of reasoned policy analysis, but simply out of a small-minded desire to denigrate President Obama's accomplishments, and to spite the Republican-controlled Congress that failed in their attempts to eliminate health care for 22 million Americans.

All of this follows his blatant effort to play "Divider in Chief" by sending Vice President Pence on a $240,000 mission to walk out of a football game while players exercised their right to respectfully protest the rise of violence against people of color. Coming after Trump's overt defense of the white nationalists' violence in Charlottesville, we shouldn't be surprised, but I still find it hard to believe that a president of the United States of America can act with such malice toward our citizens.

If that's not enough to suggest that President Trump is mean-spirited and unhinged — consider his most recent attacks on children of undocumented immigrants; and on the Puerto Rican people, who are U.S. citizens, still struggling to gain access to clean water, food and shelter after the demolition of their homes and communities by Hurricane Maria. What kind of decent human being takes out his petty anger and self-aggrandizement on children for being born into difficult situations? What kind of president demeans Americans for wanting federal aid in the wake of widespread disaster and catastrophe? Could it be a petty tyrant who has turned the White House into an "adult day care center" as suggested by Sen. Bob Corker, a reliable and respected Republican from a deep red state?

In an Oct. 8 interview with The New York Times, Sen. Corker stated what many politicians have known but have hesitated to openly acknowledge: that Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit and unqualified to be president. Sen. Corker went on to acknowledge that most Senate Republicans share his assessment, saying "Look, except for a few people, the vast majority of our caucus understands what we're dealing with here."

As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Corker expressed concern "that we could be heading toward World War III." This legitimate concern brings back the deep trepidation and fear I felt for my country in the tumultuous dark days in the 1960s following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy when the streets filled with protest after protest. I am as fearful for my country now as I was then. Maybe even more.

It's time for Senate Republicans to see that more is at stake than their re-election. Because Trump the bully likes to give his opponents demeaning, cartoonish names, I used to think of him as "Donald the Menace." Now, given his mission to set the ACA on fire and courting another nuclear threat, I've come to realize he is really "Lil' Donald Detonator."

The stakes have never been bigger for our country; the stakes have never been bigger for the GOP establishment. The Party of Lincoln cannot become the Party of Trump. For the love of country, for the sake of global stability, please, Senate Republicans, put Lil' Donald Detonator in check.

Kate Troll is the author of "The Great Unconformity: Reflections on Hope in an Imperiled World." She has over 22 years' experience in Alaska fisheries, coastal management and energy policy. She lives in Douglas.

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