So is Donald Trump the best argument yet for the abolition of nuclear weapons, or what? In a little more than a month, there's a small but real possibility that a man who can't keep his finger off the tweet send button will have the very real ability to deploy genocidal weapons at his sole discretion. This absolute power over the fate of life on earth has always been incompatible with the most basic notions of democracy, not to mention bedrock ideas of a common humanity incompatible with mass murder as a matter of state policy. But it's always been much more than a remote possibility that someone of mental or temperamental instability would be elected president.

And let's not deceive ourselves - we've already been here. Richard Nixon slunk into such belligerent despondency in his final White House days that aides made sure he wouldn't be able to make unilateral decisions to use nuclear weapons. Ronald Reagan suffered from Alzheimer's during his final years in office.

So, sure, this is yet another argument against Trump (as if we really needed anymore!), but it may be the most decisive in some ways. But as it turns out that the Pentagon is making plans for upgrading the U.S. nuclear arsenal, including smaller-scale weapons that could lure policymakers into considering their tactical usefulness, as opposed to deterrent value, it's important to remember that the basic problem is that these weapons exist in the first place.

Another twist, though - we may have most to fear from the proverbial madmen - but what to think of all the rational minds seeking to perpetuate our ultimately immoral and destabilizing nuclear weaponry?