Over this weekend, no other report about trump has been as damning as Jeffrey Goldberg's article in the Atlantic about trump's consistent disrespect for the men and women of the armed forces. I could quote bits and pieces from it, but you SHOULD go and read the article in full. If I should quote any passage, it's this:
On Memorial Day 2017, Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery, a short drive from the White House. He was accompanied on this visit by John Kelly, who was then the secretary of homeland security, and who would, a short time later, be named the White House chief of staff. The two men were set to visit Section 60, the 14-acre area of the cemetery that is the burial ground for those killed in America’s most recent wars. Kelly’s son Robert is buried in Section 60. A first lieutenant in the Marine Corps, Robert Kelly was killed in 2010 in Afghanistan. He was 29. Trump was meant, on this visit, to join John Kelly in paying respects at his son’s grave, and to comfort the families of other fallen service members. But according to sources with knowledge of this visit, Trump, while standing by Robert Kelly’s grave, turned directly to his father and said, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” Kelly (who declined to comment for this story) initially believed, people close to him said, that Trump was making a ham-handed reference to the selflessness of America’s all-volunteer force. But later he came to realize that Trump simply does not understand non-transactional life choices.
“He can’t fathom the idea of doing something for someone other than himself,” one of Kelly’s friends, a retired four-star general, told me. “He just thinks that anyone who does anything when there’s no direct personal gain to be had is a sucker. There’s no money in serving the nation.” Kelly’s friend went on to say, “Trump can’t imagine anyone else’s pain. That’s why he would say this to the father of a fallen marine on Memorial Day in the cemetery where he’s buried.”
We need to remind ourselves that this report of trump's incomprehensibility is actually old news. trump has been disdainful of military service and the people who signed up for it even years before he started campaigning for the Presidency. he's been caught bragging about getting out of the 1960s draft and comparing service in Vietnam to his trying to avoid STDs in the 1980s.
Goldberg's article rehashes the reality of trump's failed trip to honor the fallen of World War I back in 2018. trump's people denied the reports then, but it comes up again with sources confirming trump labeled the Belleau Wood Marines as "losers" and "suckers".
It's been documented that trump views the world as "winners" and "suckers" and that he himself should never be seen as a sucker. The implication there being: the rest of us should be suckers, to his con games.
It's been documented that trump wants everyone else to respect him - and be loyal to the point of sacrifice - but cannot in any way show respect to any of the people who work for him. To any of the people he views as beneath himself. You know, the people he views as suckers.
The warnings are there, have always been there, big red flags getting waved with giant easy-to-read letters printed on the banners screaming "TRUMP IS A SELFISH UNTHINKING MONSTER".
trump keeps showing us his character, a character wallowing in greed and cruelty and vulgar lusts.
None of this is surprising anymore. It just keeps hurting. And hurting. And the pain is not going to stop until trump is gone, gone from power and gone from public view.
Gods help us. We need a Blue Wave this November to wash all trumpian sins away.
1 comment:
I lay this all at the feet of the goddamn Republican electorate, who gave him more votes in the 2016 primary than any other candidate in history.
Without them, Fergus would be just another greed-damaged asshole with a lot of his daddy's money.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
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