I oppose Donald Trump

I will not vote for Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. If he wins the nomination I will not vote for him for President.

This is not a tough call.

Donald Trump is an ignorant, unprincipled, amoral policy lightweight opposed to free market capitalism and limited government.

• His ignorance of economic and national security issues is breathtaking. He makes up most of his policy views on the fly in interviews. He knows far less about policy than does a regular Wall Street Journal reader, and he cannot hold a coherent in-depth conversation about the economy or America’s role in the world. I don’t expect him to be a national security expert but it would be nice if a future commander-in-chief understood the strategic importance of NATO rather than thinking of it as a potential revenue source. In transcripts of two recent interviews he reminds me of students who try to answer questions in class when they have not done the reading. He is faking it on policy, and not that well.
• He is not doing his homework. I don’t blame him (much) for starting his campaign as a policy novice. Yet he appears to be no better informed today than when his campaign began. Policy is serious, hard work. He shows no interest and no effort in learning anything about the issues and decisions he might face as President. As a result he babbles in interviews, avoids Q&A sessions with voters, and changes the subject whenever he is stumped (several times per interview on average). He should be improving over time and he’s not. Even if he intends to reject the advice of experts and be an outside-the-box thinker, he should at a minimum understand what he is rejecting and where that will lead him.
• His policy views are cartoon-like when not entirely absent. Shouting STRENGTH is not a policy. His views seem to be unmoored by any intellectual structure or philosophical approach. He is unprincipled: he appears to view the world through dual lenses of transactions and of people he likes and dislikes. He treats other nations as competing firms and acts as if America’s only overseas interest is in maximizing revenue streams paid by foreign governments. His fiscal solutions are to cut waste, fraud, and abuse and to get other nations to pay America for military protection. He wants to disengage from the Middle East, destroy ISIS, and take Iraqi oil. America faces far more important questions than who will pay for a wall, and economic policy is more than renegotiating trade agreements.
• He promises strong but amoral leadership. He promises to make America great again, but great alone is insufficient. America must also be good. A President’s job is in part to make value choices and he cannot explain his values. I know what the other nominees think a good America looks like. All I know about Mr. Trump’s America is that it will have a huge wall and new trade deals.
• To the extent he has expressed views on economic policy I strongly disagree with them. I want to like his tax cuts but at some magnitude you also have to propose accompanying spending cuts. He threatens a global trade war while I am a free trader. By ruling out changes to Social Security and Medicare he would guarantee massive future tax increases. He has supported single payer health care reform. He boasts that he would order firm leaders to build their factories in the U.S. and then threatens to punish them if they do not. Business leaders, not politicians, should be deciding where to invest their firm’s capital. He seems to think of the federal government as a big firm; it’s not. I have yet to see an instance of a policy view from him consistent with free market capitalism and limited government intervention in the economy.

Donald Trump is dangerous.

• He has created conditions at his rallies that led to violence, then winked after it occurred, encouraging even more. He is not solely responsible for this outcome. Left-wing provocateurs are the flint while he provides the tinder. Together they spark violent outbursts. Part of being a political leader is taking responsibility to tamp this down whether or not you caused it. Instead he escalates.
• He seeks out and provokes conflict. So far he has alienated 1.6 billion Muslims and he got into an argument with the leader of 1.25 billion Catholics. He claims to be a counterpuncher but kicked off his campaign by labeling most Mexicans as rapists. That was not a counterpunch. Every day he is in a new fight. In a political campaign this is dispiriting. In the Oval Office this behavior would place American lives at risk.
• He sounds like a tyrant. I worry he could (try to) become one. His instincts and rhetoric lean authoritarian. He praises foreign despots and characterizes their repression of dissent as strength. I question his commitment to freedom and the rule of law.
• His poor judgment and lack of self discipline are astonishing. He could start a war by acci-tweet. I will not vote to give control of nuclear weapons and the world’s most powerful military to a man who trolls on Twitter after midnight.

Donald Trump acts like a eighth grade bully.

• He is vulgar.
• He mistakes bullying for strength.
• He is bigoted—against women, against certain religions and nationalities. This is not political incorrectness. Mel Brooks movies and George Carlin skits are politically incorrect. Donald Trump’s insults are just crude and self-serving. Whether he is actually bigoted or just playing to the crowd is irrelevant. The effect is the same and some people will follow his repulsive lead.
• He lies frequently and apparently without compunction. To support his views he cites as evidence “I read it on the internet.”
• He personalizes every professional disagreement, smears his opponents with innuendo, and facilitates others who do the same. No matter who is the counter party, public arguments with him invariably finish at a lower level than they began. He drags all of us down into the muck.

I had no idea how difficult the job of president was until I saw it up close. For more than six years and through hundreds of briefings I helped advise a president and coordinate the implementation of his economic policy decisions. A successful president must be smart, disciplined, and tireless. He or she has to use expertise effectively and to make sound decisions based on core principles and values. At the same time being president is not just about effectiveness and efficiency, it’s also about moral leadership and character.

Donald Trump lacks the character, the values, and the sound judgment essential to fulfill this awesome responsibility. He is unqualified and unfit to be President of the United States.