Anyone shocked by our President’s performance in Brussels, London and Helsinki hasn’t been paying attention. Trump so much as pledged embarrassment to his wretched core at his rally in Montana, openly questioning why we even participate in NATO. His political brand is now “delivering on promises” with vulgarity only he can deliver to a base of people proud of the shortcomings they conflate with personal identity. The enemy is anyone not enamored with the nihilist destruction their champion pursues – and, like him, they are willing to fight for what they hardly understand.
Band of Brothers, the universally lauded HBO production of Easy Company’s exploits in World War II, produced countless classic scenes, but two always stand out. The first is when Webster, the writer and intellect of the unit, looks down from a bridge at thousands of captured German soldiers and in a fit of rage screams “You servile scum!”, even as they continue to march in lockstep, punctuating his denunciation.
Another memorable image is the title speech Major Winters allows a captured German Colonel to give his men, which transcends their differences and perfectly encapsulates his own feelings, In it, the German officer extols the comraderie war so naturally creates, the honor organized human conflict perpetuates on the battlefield, regardless how misguided it’s objectives are, and the dignity that bravery and sacrifice imbue any campaign, even folly.
I have pondered the dichotomy of these two scenes since Trump’s idiocy abroad, and the desperate attempts since by the GOP to mop up the mess, even as their leader refuses to leave his rabbit hole. That such a feckless poser is the Commander and Chief of history’s most powerful military seems incomprehensible.
In fact, from the beginning of his ascent Trump has relentlessly worked to co-opt anyone wearing a uniform into his grievance platform. Our soldiers are mistreated by the VA, our cops are targeted by those ungrateful enough to expect them to follow laws they enforce, ICE doesn’t have the tools they need and are hamstrung by MS-13 loving liberals, Obama’s never visited the Boy Scouts, and on and on. The success he seems to enjoy with these constituencies naturally begs the question whether they mistake empty flattery for a sense of any responsible mission they would find honor in pursuing.
Hitler convinced millions their destiny was clear and one with his ambitions; Trump hasn’t bothered to cultivate a vision past a nihilist break from the Dystopia he concocted and blames all of his predecessors for helping to create. The evolving definition of America’s enemies appears to be anybody he deems “unfair” to his whim, anybody taking issue with his recklessness. After only eighteen months, anyone with even a loose grasp of history knows what sociopaths like Trump require to feel secure… conflict. None of it makes sense… like war itself.
America First is ugly white nationalism, ready to do most anything to anyone that comes within its cross-hairs; and Trump will point them out. We know this clearly now. It may be within our borders, it may be an external target, but Trump in office is going to produce hostilities.
Whatever conflict we may lurch into, whatever acts our people in uniform may ultimately be expected to commit at the whim of this ugly testament to our civic failure, we know that even history’s worst, most ghastly military crusades still produced strands of the best in human character, even by its servile prosecutors. In the end soldiers also pay the price for the power their leaders seek, or the insecurity they try to fend off, or the paranoia and delusion from which they suffer.
Trump has from the beginning cynically sought to manipulate the unique bonds instilled by the armed services, even as he did everything possible to exempt himself from experiencing them. That he is not unequivocally discredited, even as he repeatedly attacks one of the country’s most recognized military heroes, illustrates the depravity of a political base fully disconnected from the values it claims to worship.
Trump has repeatedly made clear his fealty to tyrants in the name of peace. The disdain he exhibited for the membership of NATO, an alliance that has actually prevented cataclysm in Europe for 70 years, and he is supposed to lead, is sadly part and parcel of his desperation, which fully mirrors manic despots of the past. He equates isolation with the prudence only he can employ. And while most saw his treachery for what it was, millions still look to Sean Hannity for the only explanation they will accept…and then adopt as their will.
This Presidency can’t coexist with peace and prosperity because it is cut from the same cloth as countless regimes past, who all confirmed this point. Where our sons and daughters will be sent and what they will be asked to do in service to anything but the national interest, will impact yet another generation, just as Iraq and Afghanistan continues to weigh on the one before it. And just know that most of America would give at least a little toe to have even that group of chickenhawks back rather than our current pestilence.
Whatever camaraderie, honor and faith is conveyed on the battlefield better be substantial because it’s the only silver lining anything America First conjures up will ever offer. BC