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WEST DisapPOINTment [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-25
Trump’s commencement speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point exemplified why he is unfit for Commander-in-Chief and would never meet the minimum requirements to be a cadet. The foremost reason being, he lies. While everyone knows Trump lies continuously, he told some whoppers in his meandering grievance-oriented political diatribe. The entire text is available.
There have been several other articles discussing the shortfalls of the address. Despite his well-established track record, he advised the Cadets to avoid “trophy wives.” Some reports called the speech “embarrassing,” and “bizarre,” points on which I would strongly agree. Trump also told them not to have “drag shows” and how he and Alfonse Capon had been investigated.
Resorting to his traditional political grievance rallies, he told the audience that for the last four years “our country was invaded,” by gangs, criminals, and mentally insane. He told them how he had won the election by “millions by votes” (omitting that he had a plurality, not majority) and how many counties had voted for him. Hardly typical school commencement fare. He also told them that America, has, “been ripped off by every nation in the world,” and targeted NATO in particular.
The rambling should bring into question his declining mental competence. Consider this quote, “we have the best missiles. We already do drones and much more.” Talking about hypersonic missiles, he claimed we had the first basic research, but it was stolen from us under the Obama Administration. He speculated it might have been Russia as the culprit.
Incoherently he told the Cadets, “We have the hottest country in the world.” Referencing his recent trip, he noted the Gulf leaders all said, “the USA I hotter than we have ever seen it.” Again, in his self-congratulatory mode he claimed, “When I left office four years ago, we had no wars, no problems, we had nothing but success.” What part of BS doesn’t he understand? Obviously, he omitted his surrender to the Taliban and the mess of withdrawing our forces that he left for Biden. Then there was this thing called Covid he totally screwed up with thousands of Americans dying.
West Point has an exacting code of honor. A short version is that “cadets will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.” Donald Trump fails all of it and has a lifetime of antithetical behavior. There were several major false comments. He talked about the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen Dan Caine. Trump’s claim was that while some senior officers thought it would take five years to defeat ISIS, Trump, with “Razin” Caine accomplished it in three weeks. The defeat of ISIS not a new claim by Trump but they remain a significant terrorist threat. It is true their territorial claims in Iraq and Syria were significantly degraded by an international force. While, for a time ISIS was attempting to establish a caliphate, at its heart ISIS is an ideological movement. Thus, it can be suppressed, but nearly impossible to extinguish. In Fact, ISIS has spread and is active in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, the southern Philippines and there is ISIS-K challenging the Taliban in Afghanistan. Five years after he left office, they are far from defeated as Trump claimed.
Another of the whoppers is that Trump “rebuilt the Army.,” or “rebuilt the military.” Frankly, his concept of the military as its use is frightening. In this address he stated, “There will be no more critical race theory (CRT) or transgender for everybody, forced onto our brave men and women in uniform or on anybody else, for that matter, in this country.” Lost on him is that neither CRT nor “transgender for everybody” was part of military curricula anywhere. Coward that he is, it is part and parcel of Trump’s campaign to demonize a nearly defenseless minority by creating fear for base constituents. Also missing from consideration is that the now prohibited transgender troops have been serving faithfully for several years. That includes their service in combat. The U.S. military budget exceeds the nine countries combined. Trump did not do that.
More circumspect will be Trump’s assertion that the Army’s mission is “to obliterate the enemy.” That is what he told the USMA Cadets. As we repeatedly have learned and GEN Petraeus stated, “You cannot kill your way out of the problem.” If obliteration of adversaries is the mission of the Department of Defense, we can reduce their strength by about 80-90 percent. I’ll address the stupidity of Trump’s assertion and solutions in another article. Notably, lethality is what Hegseth has been touting as well. As I previously wrote, Trump is an existential threat to humanity.
For the psychologists to ponder, Trump gratuitously twice mentioned that his father, Fred Trump, “was happy guy.” A strange comment for a commencement address, but his relationship with his father has been a significant point of speculation for many years. But Fred Trump did leave Donald, an estimated $400 million which he blew.
True to his avoidance of military service, Cadet Bones Spurs embarrassed himself yet again. He should have taken a lesson from Al Gore who enlisted and went to Vietnam. Gore was a Harvard University graduate, with strong political ties and could easily have gotten out of serving. Having a number that made him likely to be drafted, and even philosophically opposing the war, with integrity Al Gore felt he could not have someone else take his place. Five times did Trump let “someone else” take his place.
As demonstrated by his rambling, self-indulgent narrative, Trump neglected the first rule of leadership: It's about them, NOT about you! But what can you expect form a narcissist.
His presence at West Point is an unavoidable stain on the institution.
Author statement: For anyone who follows such things, I’m not a ring-knocker — but a product of the Benning School for Boys
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