Co-Authored by Maclen Zilber, Democratic Strategist and Campaign Consultant based in Hollywood, CA
Under the less than ten day old Trump presidency, it seems that every day there's a new war.
A war against the facts. A war against the president of Mexico. A war against the media. A war against the environment. A war against NATO. A war against muslims. A war against our election system. A war against Hollywood celebrities. A war against women's rights. A war against China. A war against presidential etiquette. A war against refugees.
Barack Obama's presidency is just a few days into the rear view mirror, and already questions are being raised about whether or not these wars that Trump has incited, will ever end.
The sitting president's continued flame-throwing and open hostility towards the world, both domestically and internationally, is increasingly raising tensions inside the United States and abroad, while sowing the seeds of conflict, chaos and instability across the planet.
Trump's actions are even raising questions about whether his dangerous and divisive moves are putting Americans, and all of Earth's human inhabitants, on a collision course destined for global war.
We sincerely hope not, as this question is downright scary to imagine or even to conceptualize.
At the heart of what makes the Trump presidency so dangerous is his overt willingness to look the American people in the eye-- and flat out lie to them.
Trump first did it through his press secretary, Sean Spicer, regarding the crowd size of his inauguration. Then he did it himself the following day at CIA headquarters, conveying the same falsehood as Spicer. At the same event, Trump misrepresented the facts about his relationship with the intelligence community, saying the media created the illusion that he had a poor relationship with the apparatus, when just days before his inauguration it was Trump who callously compared it to "Nazi Germany."
The next day, and the third day of Trump's presidency, his senior advisor, Kellyanne Conway, refused to dispute Trump's lies, instead branding them as "alternative facts," on NBC's show Meet the Press.
Even worse, on day four, after being sworn in as America's 45th commander-in-chief, Trump lied to Congressional leaders, saying there was widespread voter fraud to the tune of 3-5 million votes in the November 2016 election. The false claim essentially undermined both the legitimacy of his election as President of the United States, as well as the entire fabric that holds our representative democracy together.
These lies likely only scratch the surface of what's to come from Trump in the years ahead, and unfortunately, his tyrannical, schizophrenic and erratic behavior is increasingly putting every American's security at risk.
Think about it. If Trump is willing to advance a reckless and delusional lie about his own election after voter fraud allegations have been widely debunked, or about the size of his inauguration crowd due to his obsession with being best and with his inferiority complex, what will stop him from lying about a world conflict that could put our nation into harms way? Such a move could lead to war, bloodshed and even the loss of American lives - and we would never even know if we could believe the pretenses behind said war.
Beyond his boldfaced lies, Trump's simplistic stroke of the pen through executive orders or his alienating tweets to other world leaders are establishing unease and severe volatility across the globe-- and it doesn't seem to bother him or his quisling advisors one bit.
All of these dynamics at play point to the fact that with every day that goes by, instability is brewing across the land and a sickness is growing inside of America that's spearheaded by our nation's demagogue of a leader, Donald Trump.
Understandably, President Obama noted that he would extend to Donald Trump the same traditional courtesy that so many presidents before him did by remaining silent and letting the new president lead without interference from their predecessor.
That said, desperate times call for desperate measures, and after an unprecedented and unorthodox election, perhaps that in this new world order we live in, old traditions don't apply any more.
Given his far-reaching popularity with Americans and people abroad, it's far past time for President Obama to break tradition and his silence.
Now, at our darkest hour, we need our nation's greatest communicator to dust off his sneakers and get back into the fray. The man who once inspired a nation to believe that we were not red states or blue states. The skinny kid with the funny name, who once made us believe in hope and change.
The only thing that can defeat fear is hope. President Obama, we know you have given everything you have for us, and we don't have any right to ask you to sacrifice a moment longer. But the American people need your talents, we need your voice, we need your quill, and we need your moral authority.
You said last fall that you would defeat Donald Trump if you went toe-to-toe against him.
It's time for you to prove it.