The following seems important to include in this journal.
Unlike all presidents before him President Trump dislikes, maybe even hates, our military establishment, the best in the world. Whatever Trump’s views of the military over the years, when he became president and swore an oath to protect the Constitution, at the same time, he became Commander in Chief of the nation’s military force, who are sworn to defend our Constitution. As Commander in Chief Trump has an obligation to suppress any personal views that interfere with his sworn duty to effectively lead our troops, thereby protecting the Constitution and our people. He emphatically has not done that. A commander is supposed build confidence in his troops. Trump emphatically has not done that. These actions alone justify his removal from office.
Jeffrey Goldberg, in his article, “Trump: Americans who Died in War are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers,’” included in the September issue of the Atlantic magazine, notes that Trump has “repeatedly disparaged the intelligence of service members and asked that wounded veterans be kept out of parades…” According to Jennifer Griffin, Fox News reporter, Trump has said about the wounded veterans in parades, “that’s not a good look.”
In 2018 Trump was in Paris and cancelled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery at the last-minute asserting truthfully that it was raining and falsely that his helicopter wouldn’t fly. He was concerned that his hair would become disheveled in the rain, writes Goldberg, and he did not believe it was important for him to honor American war dead. In a conversation with members of his senior staff that morning Trump reportedly said “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip he referred to the 1,800 U.S. Marines buried on the sacred ground of Belleau Wood, a consequential battle in World War I, as “suckers” for getting killed. Trump denied this report once it became public, but it was confirmed by Fox News, among others, much to his unhappiness.
There are other like examples. When the great Senator John McCain died in August of 2018, Trump said of his funeral at Washington National Cathedral, “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral.” He likely was happy not to have been invited to the funeral as had been all other living ex-presidents. There are many, many other examples, but—according to Goldberg—no precedent in American politics for expressing this sort of contempt.
The precedent to which all previous presidents adhered was perhaps best expressed by a president in 1863.
“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
“But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that the nation shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
All these thoughts logically lead us to today’s principal editorial in The Washington Post, a long editorial entitled “Four more years of Mr. Trump’s contempt for competence would be catastrophic.” Quoted here is the final paragraph of that opinion—a good final assessment of the Trump administration.
“But the degradation of data collection [by Trump administrators] serves one obvious purpose: If we don’t gather information, we cannot see the depth of Mr. Trump’s failures. Another term could allow Mr. Trump to complete the demoralization, politicization, and destruction of a workforce that once was the envy of the world: the U.S. civil service, health service, Foreign Service, and uniformed military. In everything from consumer safety to air quality, to life expectancy, the results would be catastrophic. But there would be nobody left to measure them.”
John Jay