The verdict is in. After 16 years of death and destruction in the Middle East and Afghanistan at the hands of the U.S. national-security establishment, America is now facing four more years of the same.

How do we know this? Because President Trump has now clearly signaled that he intends to travel the Bush-Obama road.

First of all, there is the Muslim ban on those seven countries with predominantly Muslim populations. Trump says that he is imposing the ban to keep Americans safe from terrorists who would do American harm if they were permitted to enter the United States.

Second, there is a total disconnect in Trump’s mind as to the cause of anti-American terrorism, especially among Muslims. He has made it clear that his mindset is the same as that of Bush and Obama — that the terrorists just hate us for our freedom and values and that U.S interventionism has nothing to do with anti-American terrorism.

In fact, with Trump it’s actually worse than it was with Bush and Obama. While they tried to threat the needle and claim that their interventions were aimed at “the terrorists” or “extreme Muslims,” Trump has clearly bought into the whole “Islam is at war with the West” paradigm that afflicts the most extreme elements in American society.

One thing is for sure: Like Bush and Obama, Trump is mentally and psychologically unable to recognize that the real cause for anger and hatred against the United States, especially among Muslims, is the massive death and destruction that the U.S. national-security state has wreaked and continues to wreak in the Middle East.

Read the rest at the Future of Freedom Foundation.