By now, we all have heard the reports that the current occupant of the highest office in our land has referred to America's fallen warriors as "losers," and those who answered the call to military service as "suckers." He denies the reporting, of course, but not only has it apparently been confirmed by numerous reliable sources, it also is consistent with words that we have heard from his own lips, notably in his expressed disdain for the late Senator John McCain because of McCain's capture during the Viet Nam war (a war that the President was able to avoid because of alleged bone spurs). From this warped perspective, Trump was a winner (for avoiding service), while McCain was both a loser (for being captured) and a sucker (for serving his country). If this view of the world were accepted, then not only would all American service men and women throughout our history be considered "suckers," but so would those who volunteer for any worthy cause with no expectation of financial gain. The concept of self-sacrifice, which has informed the patriotic and charitable spirit not only of this country but of all humanity, would be seen as a folly, not a virtue.
Compare Trump's reported words to the words of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg. In 1863, Lincoln went to Gettysburg to honor the Union soldiers who died there for the great American cause of liberty and equality. He referred to the fallen as "those who here gave their lives, that [the] nation might live"; "[t]he brave men, living and dead who struggled" there, and thereby "consecrated [the ground] far above our poor power to add or detract"; the "honored dead" who "nobly advanced" the cause, and gave to it "the last full measure of devotion." In his brief 272-word address, Lincoln not only honored the sacrifice of those who died in the pivotal battle, but called upon his fellow Americans to honor their sacrifice by devoting themselves to the cause for which the fallen soldiers had fought. If those "honored dead" were losers and suckers, then heaven holds a special place for the losers and suckers of the world.
I cannot fathom how the party that likes to promote itself as the party of Lincoln can support a President whose reported views are so completely contrary to Lincoln's own. Similarly, I cannot understand how evangelical Christians can support anyone who has expressed such views and still lay claim to the core values of their religious tradition (and some of my Republican evangelical Christian friends, as well as these Christian Republicans whom I do not know, share my bewilderment). The Christian Gospel, in no small part, is a call to serve society's outcasts. In one famous text, Jesus taught that the final judgment will spare those who cared for the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned. These care givers are exactly the people who, if the reports are to be believed, the President likely considers "suckers," because they give of themselves without thought of material reward. (Indeed, the heavenly reward that was being promised in Jesus' parable was held out to them because they extended care and kindness to the same types of people who have been the victims of some of the current Administration's policies, but that is a topic for another day. ) And, if Trump defines "loser" as someone who commits themselves to the greatest sacrifice of all - the sacrifice of one's own life - then wouldn't Jesus himself represent a "loser" in Trump's vernacular, and Jesus' death on the cross constitute a failure of cosmic proportions?
In less than two months' time, Americans will have to choose. They can choose a life-long public servant whose son served his country in foreign wars, putting his own life at risk for an American cause, or a man who, by numerous accounts, looks upon such public servants and such patriots with undeserved arrogance and disdain. What they cannot do, in my humble opinion, is honestly profess that a person who considers men and women in uniform to be "losers" and "suckers" represents a standard bearer for the values of Lincoln or Christ. I simply see no middle ground.
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