Labor Day--Time to Reflect

 If an intelligent person looks at an accumulation of facts and statements over time about how a person behaves and talks, it is reasonable to be able to make some judgements about a person's motives, character and agenda.  Putting aside my own bias, let me try to do that for you.

 Over the past 4 years we have heard Donald Trump refer to military figures in a disparaging way.  He said about John McCain, " He's not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured."  He also told a room full of people, "McCain is probably in hell for not stripping millions of people of health care, and also I'm happy the guy is dead".    When John McCain died in 2018, Trump said on the record,  “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral,” and he became furious, according to witnesses, when he saw flags lowered to half-staff. “What the f--- are we doing that for? Guy was a f---ing loser,”

 

According to Trump's niece, Mary Trump, he told his family that if Don Jr. ever joined the military he would disown him.  Trump has had nothing positive to say about any of his chief military advisors, all of whom were replaced: General John Mattis, General H.R. McMaster, and General John Kelly.  He has called Mattis ‘the world’s most overrated general’.  His criticism of Gen. John Kelly, "“tough-guy who didn’t do a good job and got fired.  I know John Kelly, he was with me, didn’t do a good job, had no temperament and ultimately he was petered out.”   In July of 2017 at a gathering at the Pentagon for a seminar, Trump said to gathering of senior military, "You're all losers.  You don't know how to win anymore.  You're a bunch of dopes and babies"

 

So, when one looks at the most recent allegations in the Atlantic Magazine by a well-respected 30-year veteran journalist, and pairs it with previous confirmed statements and attitudes by Trump toward the military, isn't the pattern clear?  Trump's attitude and disparagement of the military has been a long and consistent pattern.

 

Let me also take a moment to comment about Trump's behavior and statements with regard to how it matches initiatives by Russian intelligence.  If you listen to Trump's statements about voter fraud, disparagement of Joe Biden, the notion that Ukraine is responsible for voter interference in 2016, there is a stunning congruence in the articulation of the statements by Russian propaganda. 

Trump has been silent on Putin's action to put a bounty on our GI's heads in Afghanistan; he has been silent on the poisoning of Alexander Navalny; he initiated a troop withdrawal from Germany (one of Putin's greatest desires); he supported Putin's denial at Helsinki about election interference in spite of US Intelligence findings to the contrary; he attacked the EU and actively supports anti-EU, Kremlin-backed parties across Europe; he publicly says that Crimea is part of Russia and calls for Russia to be welcomed back into the international community with no consequences; he dismisses Russian interference and has done nothing to prevent future interference, putting him at odds with his own intelligence community; he has repeatedly, and inexplicably, parroted Kremlin talking points across a range of global issues; he has repeatedly failed to respond to human rights violations or support democracy abroad, creating a more permissive environment for autocrats to crack down;  he has repeatedly stated his desire to withdraw from NATO several times in 2018, complaining “that he did not see the point of the military alliance."

 

Given these positions and their congruence with stated Russian objectives, doesn't it make you wonder whether there is some sort of "Manchurian Candidate" effect going on here?  Please consider all that as you decide who to vote for.

 

And perhaps more than anything else, isn't it time for some kindness?  Some empathy?  Forget Democrat and Republican.  How about some demonstrated humanity.  Do we really want 4 more years of the division we are now experiencing?  Do you really think Donald Trump will offer anything more than that?