It is common knowledge that allowing people to vote by mail makes voting easier and, consequently, increases the number of votes cast. Trump knows it, and has admitted that making it easier to vote in America would hurt the Republican Party. That's the obvious reason behind Trump's ignorant (or dishonest) warnings about 'mail-in ballots" and rigged elections. He's blatantly attempting to suppress the vote.
Although there are many other areas where Trump's profound ignorance is harming our country, one relatively obscure one deserves our attention - the deterioration of civil-military relations.
Many Americans are aware of news reports of a Presidential Daily Brief to Trump, which contained intelligence agency evidence of Russia paying bounties to Taliban fighters to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. Although it is probable that our military has taken steps to minimize the danger resulting from such bounties - assuming they actually exist - Trump has pointedly denied knowing about the intelligence, taken no obvious steps to inquire further, and has lately called news reports of such evidence a "hoax."
He's even admitted that he has not raised the issue with Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, whose ass Trump repeatedly kisses. Trump's behavior must raise questions in the minds of America's military leaders, as well as, the average soldier, sailor and airman, about the Commander-in-Chief's genuine concern for the welfare of his men and women in uniform.
Trump's misuse and abuse of the military to pull off his grotesque upside down Bible-toting stunt at St. John's Church near Washington's Lafayette Park is another case that threatens to alienate our military from him. Indeed, America's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley felt compelled to apologize to both his troops and to America for his participation in Trump's stunt. "I should not have been there," Gen. Mark A. Milley "said in a prerecorded video commencement address to National Defense University. "My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics."(Helene Cooper, New York Times, June 11, 2020)
But Trump's worst abuse and perhaps his most serious alienation of the U. S. military from him has received insufficient attention. It occurred on July 20, 2017 in the Pentagon's hallowed room known as "the Tank."
It was on that date that President Trump's advisers "staged an intervention." It did not end well. "Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn, and the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had grown alarmed over the first six months of the Trump administration by gaping holes in the president's knowledge of history and of the alliances forged in the wake of World War II that served as the foundation of American strength in the world."
Soon into their briefing, however, the lectures triggered Trump's fear of humiliation from the exposure of his ignorance. Thus, he began disputing his advisers on virtually every subject: NATO, free trade agreements, the nuclear deal with Iran, and the war in Afghanistan. Things really started going off the rails when Trump went beyond simply calling the war in Afghanistan a "loser war." The increasingly enraged draft dodger had the gall to tell the assembled military leaders, "You're all losers."
Now pulsing with rage, described as "so angry that he wasn't taking many breaths," draft dodger Trump bellowed: "I wouldn't go to war with you people." Then, in a classic case of psychological projection, Trump blurted: "You're a bunch of dopes and babies."
Simply imagine it: The leaders of America's most respected institution being called "dopes and babies" by a draft dodger.
Vice President Pence sat "frozen like a statue," but Secretary Tillerson was seething. "Others at the table noticed Trump's steam of venom had taken an emotional toll. So many people in that room had gone to war and risked their lives for their country, and now they were being dressed down by a president who had not. They felt sick to their stomachs." One woman was crying silently.
Tillerson could not take it any longer and he broke into Trump's tirade. "No, that's just wrong. Mr. President you are totally wrong. None of that is true."
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