Donald Trump in the Running for 2016 Nobel Prize

Jaws dropped across the nation when President Obama was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize during his first year as president. Now, presidential hopeful Donald Trump is in the running for the same prize. 

The nomination letter argues that Donald Trump deserves the award for his “vigorous peace through strength ideology, used as a threat weapon of deterrence against radical Islam, ISIS, nuclear Iran, and Communist China.” While he has repeatedly promised to “bomb the shit out of ISIS” and threatened to impose a tariff on trade with China, his tough talk is just that: talk. The Nobel committee should wait until Donald Trump has had a chance to go through with his plans before they considering giving him the award.

Let’s hope the Norwegian Nobel Committee has the common sensse to hesitate. Their decision to choose Obama was premature at best: they were focused on what they thought Obama could do, not what he had already done.          

“In retrospect, we could say that the argument of giving Obama a helping hand was only partially correct. Many of Obama’s supporters believed it was a mistake.  As such, it did not achieve what the committee had hoped for,” wrote Geir Lundestad, a former member of the Nobel Prize committee. Will Donald Trump receive the same “helping hand?” If so, he should politely refuse. 

Thousands of lawmakers, ministers, former prizewinners, and university professors are eligible to make nominations for the award. Nominations are due February 1st but the senders’ names are kept secret. Other alleged nominations for the 2016 prize include Pope Francis and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.