9/4/20
The Atlantic turned up with a horrifying scoop Thursday. Reporter Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that in 2018, President Trump refused to visit a French cemetery that served as the final resting place for Americans who died in World War II because he believed the men who gave their lives for their country, which is our country, were “losers” and “suckers.” My colleagues at The Post not only confirmed the account, but went on to report Trump deemed Americans who fought in Vietnam also “losers,” and used the same word to describe those captured by the Vietnamese who ended up as prisoners of war. Every time we think we’ve reached the bottom with Trump — how awful can one human being be? — we discover further depths to plumb. No surprise that Trump’s denying he said any such thing. But few believe him. The upcoming Labor Day holiday — our fourth in Trump’s America — reminds me that Trump’s insults to the ultimate sacrifice by working military can also be viewed as yet another example of his pattern of displaying utter and complete contempt for any people performing almost any form of work. His administration has all but taken a sledgehammer to workplace safety, both physical and financial. His Interior Department rolled back protections for oil rig workers, and the Department of Labor’s mine safety agency did the same for the coal industry.
An Obama-era initiative to make millions more workers eligible for overtime pay was trimmed back significantly, cutting in half the number of workers eligible. At the same time, the Trump administration has taken repeated actions to make it harder for employees to unionize. Meanwhile, he’s attempting to knock the financial underpinnings out of Social Security, claiming he would like to completely do away with the payroll tax that funds the program — which would effectively destroy the best chance many Americans workers have for a dignified and not penurious retirement. This contempt for almost all workers has become all too clear during the novel coronavirus pandemic. Trump has shown almost zero concern for the lives of so-called “essential” workers, people who are putting their lives at risk by reporting to jobs on a daily basis. Nor is Trump showing much concern over the fate of the people who are getting financially pummeled by the economic carnage caused by covid-19. In Trump’s America, there is only room for one winner, and that’s Donald Trump. The rest of us? Whether serving our nation in the military, or on the job, or simply living our day-to-day lives — when things go wrong, we’re on our own. We are, to borrow Trump’s word, losers.
