Three months ago, President Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima. Speaking at the Peace Memorial Park, Obama called on the U.S. and indeed the world, to have a "moral awakening."
In an ironic twist, the ascendency of Donald Trump to Republican presidential nominee has in some ways ushered in a moral awakening. His blatant racism, bigotry, and misogyny have actually begun to unify people from both sides of the aisle. We are starting to see a majority in the U.S. coalesce around a message of "Love Trumps Hate." Increasingly, people are getting sick of senseless gun violence, death, and economic inequality.
As citizens are waking up and rejecting Trump's message of hate, this election has also forced Americans to open their eyes and begin to think about the importance of nuclear disarmament. Since the end of the Cold War, many have remained asleep on the issue of nuclear weapons. Many Americans remain blissfully ignorant of the magnitude of President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb, what is currently at stake, how many nuclear weapons exist in the world, or the cost to maintain our nuclear arsenal. But the thought of Donald Trump having access to the nuclear codes has forced people to take notice.
Just this week, Joe Scarborough, former Congressman (R-FL) and host of Morning Joe, explained that when Trump met with a "foreign policy expert, he asked three times 'why can't we use nuclear weapons.'" Hearing this makes hyperbole of the world ending with Trump's election seem all the more real. As terrifying as this is, one cannot assume nuclear weapons would never be used in a Clinton presidency. While it is clear that Clinton is a far safer bet than Trump, it is important to point out that her vice-presidential nominee, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) has repeatedly stated that Harry Truman is his favorite president. Kaine is also in favor of the $1 trillion plan to modernize and expand our nuclear arsenal. It is clear that Kaine is on the opposite side of those senators encouraging Obama to cut funding for nuclear weapons and adopt a "no first use" policy.
This weekend marks the 71st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Let us not forget that when Kaine's hero, Harry Truman was told that we just killed over 140,000 people in Hiroshima, he said, "this is the greatest thing in history." This after Truman was warned repeatedly that the atomic bomb was not needed to end the war. Indeed, seven of America's eight five-star officers in 1945 -- Gens. Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur and Henry Arnold, and Adms. William Leahy, Chester Nimitz, Ernest King and William Halsey -- later called the atomic bombings either militarily unnecessary, morally reprehensible, or both. Yet, today many still remain unaware of the true horror and suffering that occurred in Hiroshima in 1945 or Truman's real motivations for using nuclear weapons (revenge for Pearl Harbor, to flex our muscles to the Soviets, and his own deep-seated racism).
Moreover, because of the process Truman put in place, we now live with the real threat of nuclear annihilation. Currently, there are two things that can eliminate us as a species: climate change and nuclear war, and as former Secretary of Defense William Perry has repeatedly stated, "today, the danger of some sort of a nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the Cold War." It is hard to disagree. Whether it is Brexit, U.S./Russia relations, ISIS, or the possible remilitarization of Japan, nuclear weapons is the heart of all of these issues. For years, I have argued that the most important question for any voter is if we were faced with another Cuban Missile Crisis, who do you want sitting in President Kennedy's chair? It seems that now many are echoing the same sentiments.
So on this weekend in which we commemorate one of the worst things the U.S. has ever done, my hope is that we collectively continue to "wake up" to the idea of nuclear disarmament and use Trump's message of hate and fear to unite us all in not only making sure he is not elected, but in a common cause to ensure this planet remains safe and secure for all of our children and grandchildren. As the only country to use nuclear weapons, we owe this to the survivors. As members of the human race, we owe it to each other.