To paraphrase the single most famous line from a memorable scene in the movie Network, Donald Trump was mad as hell and he wasn’t going to take it anymore.
And so the 72-year-old man who occupies the Oval Office of our White House as president and who by his very presence is the face and voice of America to the rest of the globe, spent days before, during and after a trip to Paris to meet with other world leaders to commemorate the end of what was once called the War to End All Wars by parading before them and before the cameras of the world his unhappiness with his life – and his unhappiness with them.
The most powerful adult in the world acted like a 3-year-old who didn’t want to eat his vegetables. He whined. He sulked. He pouted. And the man has developed a world class pout in his 70-plus years. It is not an attractive look.
Even as he landed in Paris, he fired off a tweet denigrating his French host and the French people.
He didn’t want to go to a solemn memorial ceremony in the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery holding the remains of 2,289 Americans who died in the brutal, bloody World War I battle of Belleau Wood. It was raining – as it had been raining when they gave their lives there in 1917.
He preferred to spend the day tucked comfortably and warmly into a suite at the American Embassy in Paris watching television.
The next day he didn’t want to walk abreast with dozens of other heads of state leading a somber parade of remembrance down the majestic Champs-Elysees. It really wasn’t his kind of parade – no troops in their best finery, no jaunty military bands, no fireworks, no jets swooping down from the skies. And it was raining.
He wasn’t about to plod along in the rain with a bunch of his inferiors – never mind that two of the participating nations, the British and the French, had been our staunchest allies for hundreds of years and another, Germany, had not only been a firm friend of the U.S. for more than 50 years but was probably the key to preventing yet a third catastrophic global war from originating in Europe’s blood-soaked soil.
He distinguished himself by acting sullen and petulant throughout his brief stay in France, even though he did make a hurried stop at another American cemetery in France before leaving to quell the furor over his failure to visit the first. And he flew home early, arriving in time for our own Veterans Day. Which – you guessed it – he avoided commemorating with veterans at a military cemetery in our country.
Two writers from the Washington Post aptly dubbed them Trump’s “days of fury.”
There’ve been more than a dozen presidents in my life. Since I’ve been old enough to have an opinion, I’ve liked some and disliked others. But never before – not even when Richard Nixon was blatantly breaking the law and encouraging his underlings to do the same – has one truly disgusted me. At least until now.
Donald Trump disgusts me. As he seems to disgust a lot of people.
In his few political campaigns, he didn’t take a high road, persuading voters of the wisdom of his ideas. Instead, he vanquished his Republican opponents essentially by mocking and deriding them. Running against a singularly unpopular Democratic candidate, he won not with the superiority of his arguments and his ideas but by belittling and denigrating her.
I’m not sure this country ever before had a presidential candidate who vowed his opponent should be jailed. But 11 times in his campaign he said Hillary Clinton belonged in jail, and at least once he promised to appoint a special prosecutor to be sure she ended up there. “Lock her up!” was a trademark cheer at all his rallies.
Since he was inaugurated, he has – with the help of his eager enablers – spent his time essentially curtailing or downright abolishing the programs and safety nets put in by all other presidents over several generations – to help all Americans lead productive and fulfilling lives and protect them in times of need.
This man, brought up in wealth, has never wanted for anything in his life. Time after time – even when at least four of his businesses went bankrupt – he was bailed out by his millionaire father, just as he has repeatedly underwritten his own children’s ventures, even when they failed miserably. He has no real conception of being in need.
But some things should be sacred to any American, even to Donald Trump.
And if because of his remarkable lack of empathy, demonstrated over and over, he is too dense or distant to understand this, surely he has a staff person – or even a family member – to remind him that some things are worth remembering and honoring. It is his solemn duty as head of this country, whether he likes it or not.
Since my childhood I’ve known (as have most Americans} that the people who served this country in wartime – especially those who gave their lives – hold a special place in American hearts, including mine. Our president has been an American all his 72 years, and he surely has seen that even if he doesn’t care the rest of us do.
And it is important that our elected leader – our president – represent all Americans, not merely those who voted for him. At the very least, we expect to see him attend, respectfully, formal events on such a solemn occasion as this past Armistice Day anniversary to represent us and not to sulk in a hotel room
Even if it is raining.
(“Monitor” columnist Katy Burns lives in Bow.)