Five time draft dodger Donald Trump finds a way to make Memorial Day about himself
Memorial Day is a national holiday for remembering and honoring those in our military who died while protecting us. It’s supposed to be all about our fallen heroes. We’ve all known someone, or known of someone, who deserves to be honored today. My friend died in the Afghanistan War and he’s buried a few miles from where I’m sitting. Today is supposed to be about him and others like him. Just don’t tell that to Donald Trump, who has decided that Memorial Day is supposed to be all about Donald Trump.
This morning, Trump posted this tweet, which is narcissistically tone-deaf even by his standards: “Happy Memorial Day! Those who died for our great country would be very happy and proud at how well our country is doing today. Best economy in decades, lowest unemployment numbers for Blacks and Hispanics EVER (& women in 18years), rebuilding our Military and so much more. Nice!”
That’s right, Trump just tried to use Memorial Day to brag about his own (supposed) accomplishments in office. Anyone who has ever taken an Economics 101 class knows that the current economic landscape is almost entirely a result of economic policies put into place two to three years ago or more, meaning that if Trump wants to brag about the economy, he should be thanking President Obama. The only economic move Trump has made with any major impact thus far was his international trade war, which promptly caused the stock market to lose ten percent of its value.
Also there is zero evidence that Trump has done anything to boost the military. However, the problems at the VA have grown far worse under his watch, and he no longer even has a VA Director. On the other hand, it’s long been widely reported that Donald Trump pretend to have bone spurs in his foot in order to obtain five fraudulent deferments which allowed him to dodge the Vietnam War.
But today shouldn’t be about the guy in the White House, one way or the other. Memorial Day is supposed to be about our fallen heroes in the military. If Donald Trump wanted to do the right thing for once, he’d have tried to put the focus on them, instead of using this holiday as an excuse to dishonestly brag about himself. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a cemetery to go visit. After all, this is Memorial Day.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report