SHAME ON THE COWARD-IN-CHIEF, DONALD J. TRUMP

         Imagine how the Kurds feel about the United States now? Or what Taiwan, South Korea, or Israel must be thinking about the prospect of the U.S. having their backs? Why would any country trust anything the U.S. did from this day forward?
         This is what Trump supporters, with Russian help, forced on us in the 2016 election...a self-centered coward who is loyal to no one. The United States will be paying for Trump's disastrous foreign policies (not to mention his domestic ones) far into the future.
         The popular old flag meme needs to be updated to this for U.S. military personnel to wear so our allies know...

Honoring the Great War Dead on Armistice Day 2018

         It was called the Great War because it dwarfed every previous war to that date. So many nations, so many troops, so much cost, so much destroyed, and so much death. It was a war that could have been avoided since three of the monarchs involved; King George V, Czar Nicholas II, and Kaiser Wilhelm II were related to each other through Queen Victoria. None of them wanted to see the destruction of the others. None of them thought it was the only way to resolve international issues. But nationalistic tendencies, petty grudges, interlocking treaties, and a presumption that any war would be quickly concluded led to general support for the war from almost all of the combatant nations in July and August 1914.

 Four blood-soaked years passed that claimed nearly 10 million lives, not including civilian casualties, and it was officially declared at an end 100 years ago today. It became known as Armistice Day and in the U.S. it eventually evolved into Veterans Day. The world is still grappling with the war’s fallout because no one had ever witnessed such destruction. It still deserves our attention, our deep study, our reverence, and our commitment to finding a better, nobler, and more lasting peace with those whom we share space on this small planet.

But today’s commemoration has one giant flaw.

          I object to the United States being represented by Donald Trump at the anniversary ceremonies being held in Paris, France. What a disgrace to have this bone-spur-addled criminal traitor standing in for the American troops and their sacrifice for such a somber event as the end of the Great War. It became known as World War I after an even bigger and bloodier war 21 years later that was the direct result of the Great War. But Trump doesn’t even know THAT! 

Trump travelled to Paris to join other world leaders for the memorial events. What reverence did he show? Did he have the slightest interest in honoring the grave sites of U.S. servicemen killed in that war? No. A light shower on Saturday kept him from a planned visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, the final resting place of many of the 1,800 Americans killed in the battle of Belleau Wood. His no-show prompted a chorus of scorn and derision. Those men died on a horrific battleground, surrounded by unimaginable noise, constant terror, exploding shells, and bullets stinging the air around them. But a light sprinkle of rain was all it took to keep Trump huddled far away from this sacred ground. Maybe it was good that Trump made up a bone spur in his foot because his cowardice on a Vietnamese battlefield might have cost an even greater number of U.S. dead there.

 The White House issued a lie, that is, a statement citing “scheduling and logistical difficulties caused by the weather” for Trump’s decision to ignore American war dead from the fighting at Belleau Wood. It was unclear how the weather impeded Trump’s plans. Maybe he didn’t want to figure out the open and close mechanism of an umbrella again. 

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel made the trip by car. British Parliament member Nicholas Soames ― a grandson of Winston Churchill ― reacted to Trump’s absence by calling the U.S. president “pathetic.” Did Trump offer any thoughts on the sacrifice of our allies prior to our official entry on April 6, 1917, a sobering speech about how the U.S. became involved, how many Americans were already serving in the French Foreign Legion, the Ambulance Corp, the Lafayette Escadrille, and the Royal Flying Corp? Of course not. Trump couldn’t even tell you where Belleau Wood is. 

Trump doesn’t care how the avoidance makes him look. He isn’t interested in respecting the American dead. He isn’t making any money off of it so why should he bother going? The closest Trump came to acknowledging anything about the Great War was the North Korean-like parade he demanded down Pennsylvania Avenue, originally slated for today that fortunately got cancelled because the Pentagon revealed what it would cost. It wasn’t to pay tribute to the end of the war, to U.S. losses in the war, or as a way to honor our veterans or our armed forces. It was a way to stroke Trump’s massive ego. The parade was meant to be about HIM! 

Compounding his ignorance, he tweeted a debunked story about General John Pershing in the Philippines following the Spanish-American War. 

Trump has no idea what the Great War was about. He doesn’t know when it started, who it involved, nor how many Americans died. He has no concept of serving his country. When he could have in the 1960s and early 1970s, he dodged the draft by making up a fake ailment in his foot to avoid the military. Now he thinks he should stand in for Americans who DID serve? It would have made more sense for General Joseph Dunford or General Jim Mattis to represent us. 

Having Trump represent the United States, especially on the anniversary of the end of the Great War, makes as much sense as having Olive Garden represent Italy.   

Shame On You For Shaming Trump Supporters

On a recent shopping trip, while waiting in the check-out line, I happened to overhear a ten-minute conversation between two older white males who voted for Trump, and their view of the world and of the man they wanted in office says a lot about these Trump supporters. Fox News had also recently aired a series of interviews their reporters had conducted at restaurants and other gatherings in the Southwest U.S. where they specifically spoke with people who identified themselves as Trump supporters, and they echoed almost exactly what these two shoppers were complaining about. 
        What these people think is that any assault on Trump is an effort to make them feel bad about voting for him. And they can’t stand it. They focus the whole thing on themselves; the hell with the country, the presidency, and the Constitution. All they hear about is the bad stuff Trump does and it’s not fair to hold them accountable. They want people to let “Trump be Trump” but stop reporting all the negative stuff that happens as a result of that. It wasn’t Trump’s programs that bothered them; it’s that those news organizations and people who don’t support Trump talk about them. And it revealed the core of what upset them.

Trump supporters are tired of being shamed.

        So what if Trump is not a role model, if he’s vulgar, if he’s crass, if he cheats on his beautiful wife, if he can only express himself with the vocabulary of a sixth grader, if he threw his support to Putin over his own intelligence agents, if he’s an amoral dummy. Stop shaming them because they chose him.

See, all that callousness, that racism, that sexism and xenophobia Trump expresses is not reflected in his supporters, they say. So turn down the volume and the indignation over Trump’s raising the White House US flag back to full staff as a final dishonor to Senator John McCain before his burial. Trump had that presidential right and could legally do it, so stop fussing about it. McCain was already dead, anyway.

        Stop trying to make them feel guilty over the Trump administration’s terror tactic of grabbing kids from immigrant parents and asylum seekers and throwing the kids in cages inside detention centers. Stop showing those revolting pictures of kids locked inside a cage. Boo-hoo. (Or as Corey Lewandowski said on TV in response to the comment “I read today about a ten-year-old girl with Down syndrome who was taken from her mother and put in a cage,” Zac Petkanas said, to which Lewandowski responded: “Womp womp.” Clearly, Lewandowski didn’t care.) They are sick of being shamed over not giving a damn about innocent children. It's those immigrant parent's fault, who cares about the kids. Remember, all that callousness, racism, sexism and xenophobia Trump expresses is not...NOT… reflected in his supporters…they maintain. 

        And stop shaming them for Trump saying the government did a ‘fantastic job’ during and after Hurricane Maria which killed almost 3000 Americans. It’s not their fault the Trump administration didn’t take the threat to Puerto Rico seriously and that the lack of response from FEMA was because Trump didn’t consider it a high priority because he barely recognized it as U.S. territory. So what if Trump went and played golf while Puerto Ricans were screaming for help? He has a right to relax. His job is hard. Yeah, they remember how Trump said he wouldn’t have time for golf once he got into office, but going back on his word is kind of what they expected from his unorthodox leadership style. “He’s his own man” is how one of them put it. Stop shaming them because Trump acts like a five-year-old and changes his mind like one. They know it. What are they supposed to do? Spank him?

Trump points to who he'll try to screw again

        Stormy Daniels did and she only got $130,000 for it. They aren’t ashamed that Trump paid off an adult film star, and a Playboy Bunny, and maybe a former housekeeper who bore him an illegitimate child, and maybe others, admitted on tape to forcing himself on women and even implying he grabbed them by the genitals, all while married to his third wife. Why should they feel shame for Trump’s infidelity, vulgarity, denial of payments and then confirming them, and hushing it up in order to sway voters to support him as the more ‘moral’ candidate? So what? At least Hillary isn’t president.

They are sick and tired of hearing about Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Mike Flynn, Carter Page…etc. As far as they are concerned, those people have nothing to do with Trump. To hear one person tell it, they are the best people Trump talked about. They’re just being unfairly persecuted because they used to be part of Trump’s campaign or administration. The Democrats were out to get them. Those people were just associates of Trump anyway, and so are thousands of other people. Are they going to arrest everybody?

And don’t get them started about Charlottesville. If people couldn’t see Trump was right, that there were bad people on both sides, then they just weren’t paying attention. Trump called that one correctly. [Translation: Protesting Nazis = Being Nazis.]

        Oh, and stop shaming them because of Trump calling out NFL players who kneel as a quiet protest against the murders of black people by certain cops. You’re just supposed to focus on honoring the flag. Even though the protests are non-violent, the protesters have a First Amendment right, plus kneeling is respectful to the flag (look at what soldiers do honoring fallen comrades), Trump must be right, that the players shouldn’t be allowed to kneel in protest and “get away with it.” The other one felt Trump was, maybe, wrapping himself in the flag to get revenge. It’s that “eye for an eye” thing that Trump considers the most important lesson from the bible. You see, in 1990 when Trump was a part of the United States Football League, he sued the NFL for $1.2 billion…and lost. He was awarded three dollars and 76 cents and a lifetime ban from the NFL.

Now do you understand why he attacks NFL players?

It has nothing to do with patriotism or honoring the military. He’s getting even with being banned from the NFL. Nobody does that to Trump! Stop shaming his supporters for his pettiness. Besides, they’re sick of wealthy NFL players trying to draw attention to something most Trump supporters don’t care about at all...dead African Americans - no matter who killed them. If Trump can make people want to stop going to the games because they don’t want to be subjected to the sight of a person kneeling during the anthem, and maybe even punish all those players by forcing the demise of the NFL, THEN, HURRAY…MORE POWER TO HIM. Trump is getting retribution for that NFL ban by belittling NFL players. So stop shaming his supporters because of what Trump does. It’s what they’d like to do, too, but they aren’t the president. So we have become pawns to a snowflake trying to force standing at attention on everyone in the name of his false patriotism that masks a deep-seated hostility to the organization that banned him...the NFL.

Trump supporters need to explain why they find all these traits in Trump to be desirable. Is it really to hide behind his failings and shortcomings in order to conceal their own? Then shame on them for supporting a bully, a bigot, an adulterer, a traitor, and a man who is teaching our children that dishonesty, arrogance, and narcissism can get you the presidency. So what if it’s turning our democracy into a third-rate reality TV show? Leave Trump's supporters alone. They have a right to be wrong regardless of their choice and to throw their support behind a man unfit to be president!

As I listened to them I wondered when did ignorance become admirable?

        How dare Obama be a decent man? Vote Trump!

What Trump’s supporters don’t seem to get is that the people who elected him, or who knowingly elect anyone they KNEW was a corrupt person, are not victims, but accomplices. Long after Trump is gone, history will remember all his supporters as enablers and cowards who kept quiet and let this travesty go on and on. It’s no longer about whether Trump has any decency, but if his supporters still do.
So own it Trump supporters, YOU are responsible for what Trump does. All these negative stories you hear can be laid directly at your feet because you helped put him in office.