Take Increased Devotion
There are, or should be, actions and symbols in America that are beyond the crassness of politics. The sacrifice of those who died in battle, the loss felt by their loved ones, the suffering of captivity and of injury: all are too important to make part of the common rhetoric. Yes, politicians have “waved the bloody shirt” (thus the phrase), but they have usually done so in a way which maintained the honor of those lost. Until this recent campaign cycle, when we met Donald Trump.
It started when then-candidate Trump decided that he “didn’t like” pilots who got captured, he wanted his heroes to be those who didn’t get captured. He was specifically talking about Senator John McCain, who spent many years as a captive of the North Vietnamese. McCain, his aircraft shot down, captured, tortured; offered early release (a gesture by the enemy to his father the commander of the US Pacific fleet.) He refused, waiting his turn to be released as the prisoners slowly began their flights home. He is the DEFINITION of a hero.
But Trump, a man who gained five draft deferments to avoid Vietnam, the last for heel spurs; needed to somehow put McCain down in order to raise his own candidacy. It wasn’t about Trump’s service or lack of it, it was about lack of respect for those who did serve. He attacked McCain’s heroism, and he got away with it.
Thus emboldened, Trump went farther. When Khzir Khan, the father of Army Captain Humayun Khan killed in Iraq, dared to criticize Trump in a speech at the Democratic convention, Trump attacked both Khan and his family. Up until then, “gold star” families had been sacred, their loss and grief insuring their protection: no longer.
As President, Trump now has the obligation of representing our nation to those families. Over the past couple of weeks, he has failed to publically acknowledge the loss of four Green Berets in the African nation of Niger. He tried to claim that he did more than President Obama, and that he would eventually make the calls, dragging General Kelly’s personal loss (his son was killed in Afghanistan) into the discussion. When he finally did call, the families received cold comfort from Trump’s phrase, “he knew what he signed up for.” They know.
Or is it more likely that the White House staff didn’t want the President to talk about Niger (pronounced Nee-jeer) because they were afraid he would mispronounce it, making the obvious error that every seventh grader in geography giggled about. He’s already proven that he’s not familiar with Africa; ask the leaders of “Naam-bia” (that’s Na-mi-bia.)
And he now goes after McCain again, even as the Senator faces a malignant brain tumor. McCain, receiving the Liberty Medal, “dared” to criticize the brand of nationalism that Trump represents. “At some point I’ll fight back, and it won’t be pretty,” threatened the President. McCain responded that he only reacts to the President’s actions not words, and besides, he had faced far tougher opponents in his life
Trump is a President who has wrapped himself in the American Flag. He demands that the protests of NFL players against police discrimination stop. They are “taking a knee” during the National Anthem, and, according to him, they are dishonoring American veterans in doing so. Trump claims that the Flag and the Anthem represent those that defend America who fought and died for those symbols.
It’s hard to imagine a man who could be more disrespectful to veterans than the President. But past that, he is co-opting the flag for his own political uses. Much as the Confederate Battle Flag, once representing the armies of the South, was taken over and used by the purveyors of fear and racism; so President Trump is trying to define the Stars and Stripes for his own uses. To him the Flag doesn’t represent freedom of speech, it doesn’t represent equality in America. He has taken it for his own nationalistic cause.
The “cause” Trump refers to, is the narrow, nationalist, exclusive ideal of the United States proclaimed by Steve Bannon and the alt-right. It is difficult to imagine that this is the same “cause” that Abraham Lincoln referred to in the Gettysburg Address:
“…that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion…”
“…that this nation, under God, 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.”
It is not about whether the NFL players are right or wrong to kneel, it is about their right to do so. It is not about paying lip service to veterans and their families. It is about truly respecting their service and their sacrifice. They, and the flag, should not be pawns in this political game.
