5/28/18: The president gets Memorial Day off to a
decent start at 6:01 a.m., tweeting a link to a story about a little boy he met last year at the
grave of his father, a Marine killed in the line of duty.
With that formality out of the way, Trump
makes the rest of the day about himself. His second tweet at 7:58 reads:
Happy Memorial
Day! Those who died for our great country would be very happy and proud at how
well our country is doing today. Best economy in decades, lowest unemployment
numbers for Blacks and Hispanics EVER (& women in 18years), rebuilding our
Military and so much more. Nice!
No, Mr. Trump, “those who died for our great
country” would not be “happy and proud” were they able to rise from honorable
graves and see what you have done. Those who died at Lexington and Concord so
that our people could be free would consider your attacks on the free press a
disgrace. The black soldiers from Massachusetts, cut down by the hundreds while
trying to capture Ft. Fisher in 1864, would not be happy to hear you call black
NFL players who protest police brutality “sons of bitches.” They would not be proud
to know you now say those who protest—and to be honest, protest against you—should maybe not be in this country at all. Every
Jewish soldier who ever died under the Stars and Stripes would remember your
comments after the riots in Charlottesville, when you said there were “good
people” on both sides, including the side made up of neo-Nazis and K.K.K.
types.
The immigrants who came here, fleeing
repression in Russia, starvation in Ireland and religious hatred in Poland, who
came looking for a chance to make a better life than they could in Italy or
India, who learned to love their adopted country, who fought and died under our
flag, they would not see you as you see yourself, as the greatest president
ever. They would see you as a man who tramples on the values that make this
nation great. Pfc. Diego Rincon, whose family fled Columbia as refugees, and who
died at 19 in Iraq, winning U.S. citizenship posthumously, would see where you stand
on cutting the number of refugees allowed to enter the U.S. And Rincon would
cringe. Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez, born in Guatemala, killed in Iraq in 2003,
would know that fifteen
years after he paid the greatest price a man can pay for their country, you
want to build a wall and keep people exactly like him out.
The 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam
while trying to stop the spread of communism —while you piled up five draft
deferments—would not be proud of what you’ve done so far.
Felix Longoria Jr., a Mexican-American killed
fighting the Japanese in 1944 and denied a memorial service because of prejudice in his own home
town, would listen to you talk about Mexicans as “murderers” and “rapists.” He
would recognize the same kind of prejudice he and his family faced seven
decades ago, a prejudice that blinded people even when his body came home in a
coffin draped under the flag. Those who spent years in a North Vietnamese prison
and died from torture and abuse—comrades of John McCain—would rise from their
graves to denounce you for the hypocrite you are. Those who served with Captain
Humayun Khan, a Muslim-American soldier killed in Iraq (whose family you attacked), and who were later
killed themselves would not be happy to see how you behave. Lt. Ashley White, killed in combat in
Afghanistan in 2011, posthumously awarded a Bronze Star, would consider your mistreatment
of women, your lying to even your three wives, and she would justly stand
aghast.
Those who believed in honor would know you to
be a man without honor.
Those who served because they believed they
had a duty to country and went to war in 1812 and 1917 and 1950 and 2001 would
consider your family’s entire history, of never serving at all, and shake their
heads.
Those who thought freedom was always worth
fighting for, and by that meant freedom for all, they would not be proud of you
today.
They would be appalled.
Having had his say about heroes, and doing his best to include himself, Trump spends the rest of the day tweet-bitching about the Russian investigation.
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