Trump Dishonors Fallen Soldiers Again

squeezer

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Besides the obvious moral problems with killing a political figure, assassinating Trump would literally turn him into a martyr for the MAGA crowd- it would elevate him to a Christ/JFK-like figure in their eyes and would certainly appeal to the Q-Anon faithful. The conspiracy theories would go on for generations of cult followers.
This is true but the maga base isn't sophisticated enough to keep it going for more than a few days. Once buried they will move on and go back to target practicing in their backyards with a case of beer and a pig spit.
 
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bazokajoe

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Trump Dishonors Fallen Soldiers Again
Trump’s latest visit to Arlington National Cemetery is a reminder of how little he understands about service, sacrifice, and heroism.
By Charles SykesAugust 28, 2024, 6:58 PM ET
Donlad Trump stands next to an Honor Guard member during a visit to the Arlington National Cemetery

Andrew Leyden / NurPhoto / Getty
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
On Monday, Donald Trump visited the sacred ground of Arlington National Cemetery, where many of America’s war dead are buried, and posed for photos. In the strangest of these pictures, the former president is smiling and giving a thumbs-up by the grave of a Marine. It’s an image of a man who has no idea how to behave around fallen heroes.

Trump was at Arlington ostensibly to honor the memory of the 13 service members who were killed in a suicide bombing during the chaotic final days of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The event was supposed to be respectful and private; according to a press-pool note, the families of the troops had asked that there be no media coverage in the area where the service members were buried. But Trump seemed to have other ideas.

According to a report by NPR, Trump’s campaign staff got into a verbal and physical altercation with a cemetery official who tried to stop campaign staffers from filming and taking photographs in the area of the cemetery reserved for recently fallen soldiers. The cemetery confirmed that an incident took place on Monday but did not provide any details, instead noting in a statement that federal law prohibits “political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries.” The Trump-campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement that “there was no physical altercation as described,” and added in a post on X that Trump had been allowed a private photographer on the premises. But in his statement, Cheung also accused the cemetery official who’d tried to block Trump’s staff of “clearly suffering from a mental health episode.”

It’s hard to see Trump’s Monday visit as anything but a campaign stop intended to court the military vote. Speaking to a group of National Guard members in Detroit later that day, he blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the failures of the Afghanistan withdrawal. By now, Trump’s use of the military as a prop for his own ends should surprise no one. Despite his vigorous avoidance of military service, Trump has a long history of denigrating the service of others, even as he poses as a defender of the nation’s military. As a candidate for the Republican nomination in 2015, he mocked Senator John McCain’s status as a prisoner of war. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said at the time. “I like people who weren’t captured.”

Later, as president, he told his then–chief of staff John Kelly that he didn’t want “any wounded guys” in his planned Independence Day parade: “This doesn’t look good for me.” Recently, he suggested that the civilian Medal of Freedom is “actually much better” than the military’s Medal of Honor, “because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, that’s soldiers, they’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead.”

But Trump is especially out of place around the nation’s fallen troops. As reported by The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, Trump went to Arlington Cemetery with Kelly on Memorial Day 2017 and visited the gravesite of Kelly’s son Robert, who had been killed in Afghanistan. Standing next to the former Marine general, Trump said: “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” In 2018, Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris; as Jeffrey reported, Trump told staff members that the cemetery was “filled with losers.” Trump also “referred to the more than 1,800 Marines who’d lost their lives at Belleau Wood as ‘suckers’ for getting killed,” according to Jeffrey’s reporting.

Jeffrey’s story is very much a sore spot for a candidate who wants to wrap himself in the flag. Trump has denied the reporting, but it was confirmed to CNN by Kelly: “What can I add that has not already been said? … A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs, are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’”

Kelly went on to corroborate other details in Jeffrey’s article. “God help us,” he concluded.

Monday’s wreath-laying at Arlington was, in part, Trump’s attempt to clean up the mess he has created, and to establish some credibility as a champion of men- and women-at-arms. But in the end, it merely served to remind Americans how little he understands about service, sacrifice, and heroism.




Some things never change. Trump’s disdain for the nation’s fallen soldiers is matched only by his sense of entitlement. A cemetery official literally told the Trump team that it is a violation of federal law to conduct campaign activities in the cemetery; but rather than respecting the nation’s dead soldiers and putting the cameras away, the Trump team gets into a physical altercation with the cemetery official and barges on through.

Just like when Trump plays music from Neil Young, Celine Dion, Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, etc. at his rallies despite repeated requests from the artists that he not do so. Trump’s reaction, rather than respecting the artists’ wishes, is to is tell them to go fuck themselves and he will play whatever music he wants at his events and they can’t stop him.

Just like when he wants to have sex with a woman: he will move on her like a bitch and grab her by the pussy because he is a star…or when he raped E Jean Carroll in the change room at Bergdorf Goodman.

It’s all the same kind of thinking. It is how Donald Trump rolls.

*barf*
🤮
He certainly is a piece of shit
 

Valcazar

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You are probably correct. All of this stuff is so baked in with Trump that it likely won’t do much to move the needle. His followers don’t care about things like this; in fact, they kinda like it.
Weirdly enough, it may be Vance who made this into something.
The media was unlikely to keep talking about it and as you said, it is mostly baked in as just more "shit Trump does" for most people.
But Vance's she can go to hell comment kind of turned it into the gossipy narrative the media likes and may have given it more legs than it otherwise would have had.

ETA: (This one)
 
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shack

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Now Trump is trying to claim that he was set up by the Democrats! What a fucking idiot!
1)He's saying that the Dems are smarter than he is seeing as he fell into their trap.

2)This is also a tacit acknowledgement that what he did ay Arlington was wrong.

He fails on so many levels, from start to finish.
 
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Anbarandy

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Now Trump is trying to claim that he was set up by the Democrats! What a fucking idiot!


🤡
"I was just somberly and reverently strolling thru Maralagotine National Cementary with the most exquisite grace like the world has never seen before, when all of a sudden, a fugly, raving, ranting, radical left-wing democrat sent by Nasty Nancy and Cameltoe Crapalama got inna my face and ......"
 
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jalimon

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The good news is Trump’s pic with the thumbs up will be use for next Adams family sequel. The producer said there is no way they can come up with a creepier pic.
 
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kherg007

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Everything is always Trump's fault.....LMAO The decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was all Biden's!!
It was? Didn't Trump invite the taliban to camp David and sign the accord to withdraw? Didn't he as part of the deal release 5000 taliban from gaol?
In fact it was.
Step out of the firehose and do some independent reading on this. You'll see that those folks on Fox have been misleading you.
 

Valcazar

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THREE TIMES - THREE DAMN TIMES That’s how many times Arlington National Cemetery informed Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz of an invitation to participate in the ceremony for the 13 fallen Afghanistan soldiers They declined . Only President Trump participated in the ceremony, and then he laid Roses at their graves
I think this is the part that has pissed off the troops so much.
Vance and Trump pretending this was an official event that Harris and Walz refused to go to and not a photo op the Trump campaign made up themselves to try and get press has made people who actually care about the military angry.
 

silentkisser

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It was? Didn't Trump invite the taliban to camp David and sign the accord to withdraw? Didn't he as part of the deal release 5000 taliban from gaol?
In fact it was.
Step out of the firehose and do some independent reading on this. You'll see that those folks on Fox have been misleading you.
Look, I try to view these things without any partisanship. The reality here is that the withdrawal was botched by both Biden and Trump. Trump basically gave the Taliban everything they wanted, and left Biden holding the bag. Because of Trump's terrible deal, the afghan forces and government either fled or gave up without a fight as the Taliban started to grab territory. This led to Biden increasing the speed of the withdrawal, because there was a chance US forces would be overrun.

If this was handled better, the Afghan government would have been included in the discussions with the Taliban, and an orderly withdrawal could have been accomplished. I know that MAGAs want to ignore what the stable genius did to put Biden in that position...but that's a fact. Now, Biden might have been able to do more to make the withdrawal smoother. But, the plan's fate was basically sealed in February 2020. We probably all forget about that because of COVID hitting soon after...
 

kherg007

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Look, I try to view these things without any partisanship. The reality here is that the withdrawal was botched by both Biden and Trump. Trump basically gave the Taliban everything they wanted, and left Biden holding the bag. Because of Trump's terrible deal, the afghan forces and government either fled or gave up without a fight as the Taliban started to grab territory. This led to Biden increasing the speed of the withdrawal, because there was a chance US forces would be overrun.

If this was handled better, the Afghan government would have been included in the discussions with the Taliban, and an orderly withdrawal could have been accomplished. I know that MAGAs want to ignore what the stable genius did to put Biden in that position...but that's a fact. Now, Biden might have been able to do more to make the withdrawal smoother. But, the plan's fate was basically sealed in February 2020. We probably all forget about that because of COVID hitting soon after...
I agree, and did say in my original post it does not take Biden off the hook. But you said it better.
 
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silentkisser

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I agree, and did say in my original post it does not take Biden off the hook. But you said it better.
Now, as we talk about what happened in Arlington....It's one of those things where I hate to blame Trump for this per se. I mean, I doubt he told the photographer to push the person out of the way, and I doubt he knew (or cared) about the regulations. But, as the "leader," it does reflect poorly on him and his campaign.

All that being said....the fact that he has the balls to attend this after all the shit he's said about veterans...calling the dead suckers and losers, disparaging those who were POWs??? I really have a hard time wrapping my head around this, considering how much the GOP pays lip service to "honouring the vets."
 
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Valcazar

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Now, as we talk about what happened in Arlington....It's one of those things where I hate to blame Trump for this per se. I mean, I doubt he told the photographer to push the person out of the way, and I doubt he knew (or cared) about the regulations. But, as the "leader," it does reflect poorly on him and his campaign.

All that being said....the fact that he has the balls to attend this after all the shit he's said about veterans...calling the dead suckers and losers, disparaging those who were POWs??? I really have a hard time wrapping my head around this, considering how much the GOP pays lip service to "honouring the vets."
You're missing the point.

He did this because he's gotten push back for the general disrespect he shows.

They wanted a TV commercial showing him being better than the Dems at it, and even set up a whole false narrative about how it was an official memorial event so they could then blame Biden and Harris for disrespecting the fallen soldiers by not bothering to show up to the official event.

Then they broke the law (which they had been informed of) and then the entourage shoved someone trying to do their job.

So go ahead and blame Trump and his team for the whole thing.
 
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kherg007

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You're missing the point.

He did this because he's gotten push back for the general disrespect he shows.

They wanted a TV commercial showing him being better than the Dems at it, and even set up a whole false narrative about how it was an official memorial event so they could then blame Biden and Harris for disrespecting the fallen soldiers by not bothering to show up to the official event.

Then they broke the law (which they had been informed of) and then the entourage shoved someone trying to do their job.

So go ahead and blame Trump and his team for the whole thing.
There were multiple sins. Not just entering that area, or the thumbs up, but using it for a political ad is a serious breach of protocol.
 

Leimonis

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