I often wonder what it will take for my Republican friends to proclaim, “I’m done with Donald Trump; I can no longer support him.”
One might think that they would have made this decision back in 2016 when he bragged about groping women. Or, perhaps, early this year when he was found liable for sexual assault.
What about being found guilty of 34 felonies, trying to overturn a presidential election, or encouraging an assault on Congress? Would any of these give them pause?
How about mocking a disabled reporter? Or making a graphic and vulgar sexual suggestion about Vice President Kamala Harris and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as Trump did last Wednesday on his social media account? Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, called Trump’s comments a “joke.” Would Vance think it was funny if Trump made the same suggestions about his wife?
I thought that Trump’s recounting of the time that he gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a billionaire Republican campaign donor would open the eyes of his supporters, at least those with military experience. Trump said that his donor getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom was better than soldiers receiving the Medal of Honor because the Medal of Honor recipients are “in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they are dead.” Instead of correcting himself later in the week at a campaign rally, Trump doubled down on his assessment of the value of the Medal of Honor.
Then, this past week, Trump used one of the most sacred places in our nation, Arlington National Cemetery, to stage a campaign photo opportunity, breaking the law against political campaigning there and breaking the rules of taking pictures in a special section of Arlington Cemetery while demonstrating his total lack of respect for the soldiers buried there.
Before the visit, the Trump campaign contacted military officials at the cemetery to review their policies. According to military officials, Trump’s campaign aides were told that federal law prohibits election-related activities at military cemeteries. Media sources confirmed that Arlington officials were fearful that Trump would turn the visit into a campaign photo opportunity, against their long-held policy, so they laid out the rules to his campaign staff ahead of his visit.
Trump’s people were told that no reporters or photographers could follow him to the 14-acre plot, known as Section 60, where recent veterans from recent wars are buried. But if there is one thing we have all learned about Trump, he doesn’t think rules apply to him.
According to Arlington and the Pentagon military officials, a female cemetery employee tried to stop Trump’s two photographers from bringing their cameras into Section 60. A campaign aide pushed her aside. Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung stated that the cemetery official was having a “mental health episode” at the time, but Arlington officials said she was trying to do her job.
Pictures released by Trump’s campaign showed Trump posing directly behind the burial plots of our nation’s fallen soldiers, wearing a big smile and giving his standard thumbs up. Trump tried to deny to reporters that his campaign took and posted the pictures, even going so far as to blame the Gold Star families. When he was told that the photos and video were taken by his campaign and posted on his campaign’s TikTok site, Trump responded, “I really don’t know anything about it.”
Trump never takes responsibility for his behavior and always tries to blame someone else.
As stated by Paul Eaton, a retired Army general whose father’s remains are interred at Arlington, “It is completely inappropriate to do any kind of political activity on a federal installation, and it is immoral in my terms to conduct any kind of self-serving activity on a cemetery with the graves of our fallen.”
Any veteran who supports Trump after his repeated disregard for our nation’s military, including this recent stunt at Arlington Cemetery, needs to question their own honor and patriotism.
Trump did not visit the grave sites of the 13 soldiers who died in Afghanistan during President Joe Biden’s 2021 withdrawal to honor them. It was intended as a political dig, a campaign stunt against the Biden/Harris administration. Interestingly, he avoided the graves of the 65 soldiers who died during his administration, including 45 combat deaths in Afghanistan under his watch, as documented by the Defense Casualty Analysis System maintained by the Defense Department.
Trump said this year on social media that the attacks on American forces in Syria “would NEVER have happened if I was President, not even a chance.” But it did happen when he was president, more often than during the Biden administration.
Also, Republicans can’t be upset about Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the playing of the national anthem before a football game and then pretend that Trump’s behavior at Arlington Cemetery is acceptable. Unless, that is, they are hypocrites.
Over 80 percent of Republicans, according to the polls, continue to support Trump for president, and I doubt that dishonoring our dead soldiers at Arlington Cemetery will make any difference to them. This is just another example of a very long list of inappropriate behaviors that his supporters choose to ignore or explain away.
Apparently, they, too, have no shame.
Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.
