THE AMERICAN POSEIDON ADVENTURE

The salute is a gesture of respect rooted in military history and tradition. Over time it evolved with changes in military dress and custom. It is said that during medieval Europe, knights would raise the visors of their helmets to reveal their faces. As armor disappeared, the gesture became removing or touching one’s hat in the presence of a superior. Eventually, the hand salute, with variations among the services and nations, became the standard we recognize today.

A salute is a sign of respect for authority, not necessarily for the individual being saluted, but for the office or commission that person holds. It is also a symbol of mutual respect and recognition for honorable service to our country.

This morning’s image showed Bumble Trump standing at attention, saluting the four soldiers, our sons and daughters, who died in his personal war. A war he began, continues to perpetuate, that, has failed to achieve any of its constantly shifting objectives. Yet he continues to double down with our ‘Blood and Treasure’, never his own. Bumble has invested nothing personally except his ego. He promised a quick victory that would make him appear the conquering hero he imagines himself to be; the savior of saviors, the strongest of the strong, a Napoleon or Führer of the twenty-first century. Instead, we have the limp wiener, not even worthy of Laugh-In’s “Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award.”

Having Bumble stand there saluting those four young, honorable, dedicated soldiers was, a debasement of the ceremony and a desecration of the salute itself. This is the man who refused to attend a 2018 ceremony at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France. According to the former Chief of Staff, Gen. John Kelly, he questioned why anyone would serve, asking, “What’s in it for them?” saying, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”

This is the cowardly Commander in Chief who dodged military service because of a bogus diagnosis of bone spurs, yet who, without hesitation, because “it has to be done,” or so he says, sends America’s sons and daughters into harm’s way. If this war is so necessary, if the sacrifice is so essential to America’s future, then where is Barron? When will he send his own son into combat? He won’t.

Just as he spends taxpayer dollars on wasteful projects and pours billions into a war that should never have happened, he strikes deals that benefit himself, his family, and his friends while public needs go unmet and he explodes the national debt. Why is there always money for Trump’s wars, business ventures, elaborate projects, unreflecting reflecting pools, ballrooms, new name for the Kennedy Center but never enough for the 440,000 Arizonans who have lost food assistance, for education, roads, housing, and countless other public needs? Because to Bumble those expenditures don’t count. They don’t enrich him or massage his ego.

Bumble cares nothing for you, for me, or for America. How Congress, or the MAGA faithful, can continue to support someone who places his own interests above those of the nation is beyond me. What does that say about us?

The next election will provide an answer. It will reveal who we are and what kind of nation we wish to be. If voters stay home, or if they vote to continue this destruction derby, then we will have chosen our future and we will deserve the consequences.

VOTE!!!

RESIST!!! & EDUCATE!!!