QOTD -- Trump Hates The Troops & They Notice

 

"... The least surprising observation you can make about Trump is that he is an asshole and a cheapskate. Still, the president’s Iranian misadventure has fully exposed both his ineptitude as commander in chief and the consequences of this lack of care for military members and their families. As conditions on U.S. ships erode, the administration is finding itself in a media war with the concerned families of troops deployed to the region. Stockpiles of vital munitions are being burned through at an alarming rate. And for some reason, Trump has picked this moment to order a bizarre retrofitting of U.S. aircraft carriers, demanding that they be kitted out with obsolete steam catapults. (TNR contributor Brynn Tannehill has the lore drop you need if you’ve been confused by this story.)

"Public opinion about the war in Iran has been consistently awful for Trump, whose overall approval hit a low of 33 percent this week. As Parsi reports, those who are stuck on the front lines of this folly are not likely to disabuse their fellow Americans of this being anything but FUBAR. As one service member told him: “What people in the media don’t understand when they compare past conflicts to this one, is this operation has no morale behind it. That makes a world of difference to service members deployed to undesirable locations indefinitely.” Parsi thinks that the only thing left to do now is to “simply end” the war. But Trump is knee-deep in this big muddy, and there truly is no end in sight." -- Jason Linkins at The New Republic Substack, on "Trump Hates the Troops. The Troops Are Taking Notice."  The narcissistic-sociopath-in-chief can't let go for the same reason he can't let go when he loses an election, a court case, a business deal, etc.  His vastly overinflated sense of himself and of his place in history, his bubble-thin ego, his band of sycophants keeping that bubble constantly inflated with the breath of bullshit, his deep ignorance, means he will only continue a course through the kind of catastrophe only someone with his unique combination of failings can bungle into and not be able to leave. The servicemembers on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln and their families offered a stark reminder of the Malignant Fascist's incompetence and sociopathy in the most clear way possible when he said that they had been on deployment "not nearly long enough."  He hates, and disrespects, the troops all right.