President Donald Trump, beleaguered by multiple reports of his lack of empathy and concern for the military and military families, would like his supporters to please go back to hating NFL players.
“Two dozen NFL players continue to kneel during the National Anthem, showing total disrespect to our Flag & Country,” our country’s foremost Cheeto-dusted dingleberry tweeted Monday morning. “No leadership in NFL!” he added for flourish—because what’s a Trump tweet Without! An! Exclamation! Point!
Note that these microwaved meanderings on the NFL—a feud that has lasted for weeks now—came less than 15 minutes before the demented cheese grit all but called Myeshia Johnson, the Gold Star widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, a liar.
Myeshia Johnson had spoken to Good Morning America earlier in the day to address her husband’s mysterious death while fighting in Niger, as well as the phone call she received from Trump in which he told her that her husband “knew what he was signing up for.” The Gold Star widow also told GMA that the president had trouble remembering her husband’s name.
Myeshia Johnson said she had nothing further to say to Trump, but that didn’t stop the dotard from inserting himself into the conversation one more time to talk over the pregnant widow.
As many have noted, it’s the kind of treatment the Trump administration regularly reserves for black women: talking over them, dismissing them and dragging them with false claims.
That call provoked a series of reports on Trump’s treatment of Gold Star families.
The Washington Post tracked down a number of those families to find out what, if any, interactions they had had with the president following the deaths of their family members. Several families reported that Trump had yet to reach out to them, months after their loved ones were killed in action. One Gold Star father, a Trump supporter, told the Post that he had been offered $25,000 by the president during a condolence call, only to never receive the money.
So Trump, his patriotic bonafides exposed by his callous treatment of a black Gold Star widow, is now attempting to resurrect one issue that gets his base’s blood pumping: its hatred of black athletes who have something to say.
It’s an easy trigger: Bitch about NFL players not standing during the national anthem and Trump can pretend to care about “flag and country” again. Call for black athletes to be fired for their supposed lack of patriotism and there’s no need to remember the soldiers who died during his tenure as commander in chief. No need to pay respect to the families whose sacrifices he and his supporters trot out whenever it’s politically expedient. Their service matters to Trump only when he’s admonishing black people who are exercising their right to protest.
It’s predictable. It’s effective. It’s pathetic. And it’s par for Trump’s course.