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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsInside the War Between Trump and His Generals
Link to tweet
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/inside-the-war-between-trump-and-his-generals
No paywall
https://archive.ph/NOVHO
In the summer of 2017, after just half a year in the White House, Donald Trump flew to Paris for Bastille Day celebrations thrown by Emmanuel Macron, the new French President. Macron staged a spectacular martial display to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the American entrance into the First World War. Vintage tanks rolled down the Champs-Élysées as fighter jets roared overhead. The event seemed to be calculated to appeal to Trumphis sense of showmanship and grandiosityand he was visibly delighted. The French general in charge of the parade turned to one of his American counterparts and said, You are going to be doing this next year.
Sure enough, Trump returned to Washington determined to have his generals throw him the biggest, grandest military parade ever for the Fourth of July. The generals, to his bewilderment, reacted with disgust. Id rather swallow acid, his Defense Secretary, James Mattis, said. Struggling to dissuade Trump, officials pointed out that the parade would cost millions of dollars and tear up the streets of the capital.
But the gulf between Trump and the generals was not really about money or practicalities, just as their endless policy battles were not only about clashing views on whether to withdraw from Afghanistan or how to combat the nuclear threat posed by North Korea and Iran. The divide was also a matter of values, of how they viewed the United States itself. That was never clearer than when Trump told his new chief of staff, John Kellylike Mattis, a retired Marine Corps generalabout his vision for Independence Day. Look, I dont want any wounded guys in the parade, Trump said. This doesnt look good for me. He explained with distaste that at the Bastille Day parade there had been several formations of injured veterans, including wheelchair-bound soldiers who had lost limbs in battle.
Kelly could not believe what he was hearing. Those are the heroes, he told Trump. In our society, theres only one group of people who are more heroic than they areand they are buried over in Arlington. Kelly did not mention that his own son Robert, a lieutenant killed in action in Afghanistan, was among the dead interred there.
I dont want them, Trump repeated. It doesnt look good for me.
*snip*
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Inside the War Between Trump and His Generals (Original Post)
Nevilledog
Aug 2022
OP
Trump does not want to salute the military. He wants the world to see the military salute him.
keithbvadu2
Aug 2022
#1
keithbvadu2
(36,949 posts)1. Trump does not want to salute the military. He wants the world to see the military salute him.
Trump does not want to salute the military.
He wants the world to see the military salute him.
crickets
(25,986 posts)2. K&R for visibility.
markpkessinger
(8,409 posts)3. We posted this at exactly the same time!
(Great minds, and all. )
Nevilledog
(51,210 posts)4. ...