It was supposed to be a routine appearance, a visit from the commander in chief to rally the troops, boost morale and celebrate the Army's 250th-birthday week, which culminates with a Washington, D.C., parade slated for Saturday.
Instead, what unfolded Tuesday at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, bore little resemblance to the customary visit from a president and defense secretary. There, President Donald Trump unleashed a speech laced with partisan invective, goading jeers from a crowd of soldiers positioned behind his podium -- blurring the long-standing and sacrosanct line between the military and partisan politics.
As Trump viciously attacked his perceived political foes, he whipped up boos from the gathered troops directed at California leaders, including Gov. Gavin Newsom -- amid the president's controversial move to deploy the National Guard and Marines against protesters in Los Angeles -- as well as former President Joe Biden and the press. The soldiers roared with laughter and applauded Trump's diatribe in a shocking and rare public display of troops taking part in naked political partisanship.
As President Donald Trump viciously attacked his perceived political foes, he whipped up boos from the gathered troops directed at California leaders, including Gov. Gavin Newsom.
www.military.com
Is there any traditional norm trump hasn't shattered? It has always been understood politicized speeches in front of uniformed military personnel is forbidden. So too putting soldiers on the streets of American cities unless requested or consented to by a states' governor.
Is it ego or a total lack of respect for the fidelity to convention his predecessors showed that allows Don to think no rules apply to him? That he can do anything he pleases regardless of the nation's heritage or our laws.
