The 80th anniversary of D-Day on Thursday provided the contrast that should define the election.
President Biden went to Normandy and spoke about American greatness. Donald Trump went to Phoenix and called the United States a “failed nation” and a “very sick country.”
In France, Biden rhapsodized about “the story of America” told by the rows of graves at the Normandy America Cemetery: “Nearly 10,000 heroes buried side-by-side, officers and enlisted, immigrants and native-born, different races, different faiths, but all Americans.”
In Phoenix, Trump, invoked the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, saying Biden had orchestrated an “invasion” at the border as part of “a deliberate demolition of our sovereignty” because “they probably think these people are going to be voting.”
Biden hailed NATO, the “greatest military alliance in the history of the world,” and vowed to defend Ukraine: “To bow down to dictators is simply unthinkable. Were we to do that, it means we’d be forgetting what happened here in these hallowed beaches.”
Trump hailed a modern-day tyrant, Hungary’s Viktor Orban (“strong man, very powerful man”), complained about “endless wars” and “delinquent” Europeans, and vowed to “spend our money in our country” — including by “moving thousands of troops, if necessary, currently stationed overseas to our own borders.”
Biden honored the heroes of Operation Overlord, who launched an invasion to liberate a continent knowing “the probability of dying was real.” Trump promised the “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history.
Biden spoke powerfully about the threat to democracy then, and now: “In their hour of trial, the Allied forces of D-Day did their duty. Now, the question for us is, in our hour of trial, will we do ours? We’re living in a time when democracy is more at risk across the world than at any point since the end of World War II, since these beaches were stormed in 1944. Now, we have to ask ourselves: Will we stand against tyranny? ... Will we defend democracy? Will we stand together? My answer is yes, and only can be yes.”
And Trump? Though he posted on social media about the “immortal heroes who landed at Normandy,” his message in Phoenix was full of self-absorbed thoughts on his “rigged trial in New York” and nihilistic commentary: “It’s all fake. Impeachment is a fake. The court cases are a disgrace to our country. Everything is fake.”
Biden’s speech was an important attempt to rally Europeans, and Americans, against the far-right nationalists who threaten the free world. “Isolationism was not the answer 80 years ago, and it’s not the answer today,” he warned. “The autocrats of the world are watching closely to see what happens in Ukraine, to see if we let this illegal aggression go unchecked. We cannot let that happen. To surrender to bullies, to bow down to dictators, is simply unthinkable.”
Such lofty ideals are foreign to Trump, who serves no cause greater than himself. He skipped a visit to an American military cemetery in France in 2018 because it was filled with “suckers and losers,” according to John Kelly, who was his chief of staff at the time. . . . . His message has only become more vulgar since then.
In Phoenix, he was participating in an event hosted by right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk, who has said, among other things, that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was “awful” and that “we made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act.” Trump called onto the stage former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio, whom he had pardoned for criminal contempt of court related to his racial profiling and abusive treatment of migrants in Arizona.
Will Americans recognize their country in the dark and desperate portrait Trump painted? “Our country is falling to pieces,” he said, and if he isn’t returned to power, “the country is finished . . . You won’t have a country anymore.” Trump described a nation full of “crooked people” and serving as “a dumping ground for the dungeons of the Third World.”
Or will Americans instead choose to see a nation still striving to fulfill the higher purpose that Biden described? “In memory of those who fought here, died here, literally saved the world here, let us be worthy of their sacrifice,” he said.
Trump, though a convicted felon, is not in prison, nor is he likely to be when he’s sentenced next month. In reality, he undertook all of the suffering mentioned above of his own free will. But he sees great value in proclaiming himself a “political prisoner,” as his campaign did in a fundraising pitch almost immediately after he was convicted last week.
Trump’s brand has always been about driving people to desperation and paranoia. He was doing it at Trump Tower the morning after his New York conviction, saying the judge in the hush money case was a “crazed” “devil” who “literally crucified” defense witnesses. And he again told his supporters that they were targets: “If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone. These are bad people. These are in many cases, I believe, sick people.”
On Tuesday, he threatened that, in response to the imaginary “weaponization” of the Justice Department that he and his MAGA followers have conjured, he would actually weaponize the Justice Department against his opponents if he regains power.
On Thursday, he expanded his call for vengeance, saying that he wants to see indictments of the members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Never mind that the Justice Department had no role in the cases where courts have so far ruled against Trump: the state hush-money case (in which Trump was convicted on 34 counts for falsifying business records), the New York business fraud case (in which a judge ordered him to pay $355 million because he lied about his assets) or in the sexual abuse and defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll (in which he was ordered to pay $88 million). And never mind that at the pinnacle of this supposedly weaponized justice system is a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Laura Loomer, a far-right activist cultivated by Trump, said Democrats should be punished with “not just jail. They should get the death penalty.”
Trump’s sycophants in Congress echo the cries for vengeance. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), auditioning to be Trump’s running mate, referred to Biden as a “demented man propped up by wicked & deranged people.” Using flame emojis, he added: “It’s time to fight fire with fire.”
[I]f violence comes, as it did on Jan. 6, Trump will again say it’s not his fault. In his Newsmax interview this week, he claimed he never uttered the best-known phrase of his 2016 campaign, about Hillary Clinton. “I didn’t say, ‘Lock Her Up.’”
But there is ample evidence that he did. Just as there is ample evidence of the sinister rhetoric he’s employing this time around.
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