There are plenty of things that Donald Trump does as President that are offensive, and at this point, it’s not really even a controversial statement to say that — even the rest of his own crowd, and indeed his own party, have conceded that he is as abrasive as the dark green side of a brand new sponge. His “non-traditional” method of leadership is now simply assumed to come with a certain number of mean tweets.
That’s sad, of course. Profoundly sad.
But what’s even sadder is the fact that behind all of the public outcry over what a — for lack of a better word here — dick this guy is pretty much all the time, is the narrative of a man who could probably rightly be called a sociopath at best and a psychopath at worst. That is to say, the most offensive things he does are fundamental to his personality, and not just part of the character he’s surely overplaying for his audience of racists, half-wits, and trolls.
There have been some glaring examples: The fact that he constantly makes everything about himself, even solemn events. His stubborn resistance to scientific facts. His assumption that 800,000 people were somehow just “working it out” while he withheld their pay for no reason for more than a month.
But for my money, it’s that he refuses to acknowledge anyone’s sacrifices, including — especially — our soldiers.
He’s ignored their deaths over and over again, he’s compared himself to a soldier, he’s even made fun of generals and former Marines and decorated war heroes.
The most recent loss in Afghanistan, a war that Trump barely acknowledges, was a soldier named Joshua Beale, who the Department of Defense identified last Wednesday with an announcement that the Sergeant had taken small arms fire in combat.
Since that time, Trump has tweeted absolute nonsense — even including more attacks on a former soldier in the Senate — more than 50 times in his official capacity as President, but never once about the death of Sgt. Beale.
If Trump wants to disrespect the office, fine. Let him disrespect the Americans who aren’t part of his base. But stop disrespecting the sacrifice of our soldiers.
Featured image via screen capture
