This really sucks, I'm really scared...

And it's definitely not going to be like last time.

My son likes leaves. At playgrounds, he often skips past the jungle gyms, whirligigs, and slides if there are leaf piles in sight. He’ll spend an hour, even more, gleefully and persistently tossing leaves into the air around. He started using full sentences only recently. He hasn’t realized yet we have names besides Mama and Apa. But he knows the word for “leaf blower” (leaf blow-ah!), and when we go on neighborhood walks, he demands we stop and watch.

Baz in his element.

Last weekend, we took Baz to a newly opened playground on Margaret Island. (Margaret Island is Budapest’s version of Central Park but it’s actually an island in the middle of the Danube.) We never got to the playground. We happened to walk by a massive chestnut tree that had recently shed its fruit. Baz wouldn’t let us go any further. He demanded his two buckets, usually used for sandcastles. While he harvested chestnuts and carried the loads to his stroller, Mama and I kicked our soccer ball back and forth.

This week, I am again going to do some punditry, this time reflecting on what Trump could do to Ukraine and the world. It’s going to be really fearful, really dark.

If you can tolerate it, please continue. If not, here’s a picture of Baz trying to serve a ping pong ball at our local playground.

Note the actual ping pong ball is down there by his foot.

Donald Trump has the nuclear codes. Last night, this thought made me sweat into my blankets. My wife and I talked about it yesterday, over dinner after Baz was asleep. We had to stop, though, because we were both getting too scared. Think about it: Donald Trump has the nuclear codes.

Recently, I’ve seen post-election explainers about Trump and nuclear weapons that treat this like business as usual. The writers talk about “the five most pressing nuclear arms challenges confronting Trump,” about suspending or extending the New START weapons treaty, and the technicalities involved in replacing it. They talk about how much it’ll cost to expand our own arsenal, and if Trump can afford it.

But when has Trump ever treated the usual policy debates - numbers of armaments here, silos there - as anything but boring, intellectual pretentiousness? There is no “Trump doctrine” to discern out of his malevolent chaos.

He will be a dictator, as he promised he would be. He will be a dictator with a docile military, judiciary, and congress. And he has the nuclear codes.

The question isn’t how many silos Trump will build, but rather will he order the use of nuclear weapons. Because, this time around, if he gets the urge, who at the White House or Pentagon is going to stop him?

Last night at 3AM, as frightening as this thought was, this wasn’t what woke me up and made me sweat. I was actually imagining a conversation between Trump and Vladimir Putin. I was imagining Putin calling Trump with an urgent need to talk about using nuclear weapons.

What if, for some future reason, Putin tells Trump that he wants to attack Kyiv with a nuclear weapon, and he asks what Trump will do in response?

It was easy to imagine Trump agreeing to give Putin the cover he needs for such an abomination. He’ll order a strongly worded statement, but no sanctions. Or he’ll order sanctions, but military action. Or he’ll order drills and wargames, but not actual engagement. Or he may just like the idea of watching liberal elites get all worked up and outraged while he does nothing.

If Trump looks the other way at the use of nuclear weapons, can you picture another nuclear state taking the lead instead? Who is going to do it? China? France? India?

And it’s not hard to imagine Russia coming up with some reason to attack Ukraine in the future. The peace that Trump has promised to make, if he does make it, will be extremely fragile.

What is to keep Russia from treating a ceasefire as merely a temporary strategic respite? Like a waiting period, during which it takes a break, trains its soldiers, and waits for a good time to attack. Remember, Russia attacked first and without provocation. What has changed about this society, its politics or its culture, to tell them another unprovoked attack is a bad idea?

What if one side or the other engages in a vigilante attack across the ceasefire line, which leads to a bigger retaliation, and then another, and then another? Until Putin picks up the phone to Trump with his big ask.

Trump has promised peace within 24 hours of becoming president. But what kind of peace is he going to make? And if it fails, who will pay the price?

Right now, as I write these questions, I am in Ukraine. I am in a city that Putin has bombed. I won’t say which. I am mere blocks away from buildings where innocent children have been murdered in their beds, murdered for no reason other than their parents want freedom, democracy, and self-determination.

I do not offer these speculations lightly. There is a real, existential depth to the fears that are keeping me up.

The war in Ukraine, combined with Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons in his evil cause, is a major reason why 2024 is different from 2016.

I spent much of my childhood relieved that the Cold War was over. But wasn’t there also a bit of moral pride that the world had finally seen nuclear weapons to be utter stupidity? One of the consequences of Trump’s election, I fear, is that my son, who loves to toss leaves and collect chestnuts, will not live in this world.