ABSTRACT
One reason is that 2020 brings the people an election in the most powerful state in world history. Its outcome will have a major impact not only on the United States, but thanks to US power, on the perils faced by the entire world. As 2020 opened, the analysts abandoned minutes and turned to seconds: 100 seconds to midnight, the closest to terminal disaster since the first setting of the Clock in the wake of the atom bomb attacks. The reasons were the usual ones: the severe and increasing threat of nuclear war and of environmental catastrophe and the deterioration of functioning democracy, the one hope for dealing with impending disaster. Trump's dismantling of the thin barriers to nuclear destruction might well succeed in setting off a final war; and even if not, will drive the world closer to the brink. Trump's escalation of the threat of terminal nuclear war barely received a whisper during the political campaign of 2019-2020.
