Trump is toast.
He may not know it yet, but Donald Trump has destroyed his always meager chances of being his party’s presidential nominee.
How did he do that? By abusing language to self-aggrandize. Specifically, he denied that former POW Sen. John McCain is a hero.
Here’s what the uber-narcissist Trump blustered when asked by Republican political operative Frank Luntz about McCain:
[pullquote align=”right” color=”#3156a2″]How desperate for attention do you have to be to subvert the language of war to bolster your own self-esteem?[/pullquote]
Trump: But he lost and I never liked him much after that ’cause I don’t like losers…
Luntz: “He’s a war hero. He’s a war hero …”
Luntz: “Five and half years in a Vietnamese prison camp …”
Trump: “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured…”
What’s the truth? According to the Washington Post:
It was the spring of 1968 and Donald Trump had it good.
He was 21 years old and handsome with a full head of hair. He avoided the Vietnam War draft [4 medical deferments for a bone spur in his foot] on his way to earning an Ivy League degree. He was fond of fancy dinners, beautiful women and outrageous clubs…
More than 8,000 miles away, John McCain sat in a tiny, squalid North Vietnamese prison cell. The Navy pilot’s body was broken from a plane crash, starvation, botched operations and months of torture.
As Trump was preparing to take Manhattan, McCain was trying to relearn how to walk.
Apparently, in Trump’s mind, a hero is soldier who doesn’t get captured, even if he has to evade the draft and hide out in nightclubs to do so.
Similarly in actress Stacy Keibler’s mind, she’s a warrior because she had a homebirth.
Keibler told celebrity homebirth advocate Ricki Lake:
“I felt like we went to war together. I kept saying, ‘Ava’s a warrior. I’m a warrior.’ It was one of my mantras that I would say. Then when she came out, I feel like we had this bond that we had just fought together,”
Indeed:
… Keibler says she chose to stay extra healthy during her pregnancy, to give her the stamina she anticipated needing for childbirth. She and her husband chose a midwife and doula who had the “right energy” and says she also wrote up a two-page birth plan, with instructions on what to do if she was required to go to the hospital.
Just like Trump chose to stay extra healthy by avoiding service in Vietnam!
I have news for Stacy Keibler: there are real women warriors who put their lives on the line in battle to keep our country safe. For example:
In 2005, Sergeant Leigh Ann Hester, vehicle commander, 617th Military Police Company, Kentucky National Guard, became the first woman to receive the Silver Star award for close quarters combat. Ambushed by insurgents, Hester led her team through the kill zone into a flanking position, where she assaulted a trench line with grenades… When the battle was over, 27 insurgents were dead, six were wounded, and one captured. In part, her citation reads that her actions “saved the lives of numerous convoy members.”
And:
… Army Specialist Monica Lin Brown, received the Silver Star for combat in Afghanistan. Brown’s heroism was evident while providing aid under heavy gunfire to soldiers whose Humvee had been hit by an improvised explosive device (IED) during a convoy. A medic, and only 18 at the time, Brown left the safety of her Humvee to give aid to Specialists Stanson Smith and Larry Spray, who both had suffered life-threatening injuries. With the help of her platoon sergeant, Staff Sergeant Jose Santos, and three other less wounded soldiers from the vehicle, Brown eventually was able to move Smith and Spray away from the burning vehicle. When rounds of ammunition from the truck began exploding, Brown sheltered the injured with her body…
And:
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lori Hill is the first military woman to be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism. In March 2006, Hill and another helicopter were flying convoy security for two Bradley vehicles on patrol in a small village. They learned of an attack at a nearby command center involving both U.S. and Iraqi forces … Drawing the fire away from the lead helo, Hill established communications with the ground troops, and provided suppressive fire for troops engaged with the enemy on the ground until they reached safety. On the third pass, a rocket-propelled grenade hit her, damaging the helo’s instrumentation. As she was banking away, the helo took machine gun fire which hit Hill in the foot. The aircraft was losing transmission power, as well as hydraulics, which prevented the copter from hovering, a crucial maneuver for landing. So, with a damaged aircraft and injury, she made an emergency landing at a nearby forward operating base, saving her crew and aircraft.
What did Keibler do to earn her “warrior” status? Absolutely nothing.
She gave birth, which required no effort on her part and would have happened even if she had been in a coma. Oh, and she did it without pain medication, just like most of the mothers who have ever existed, and the majority of women who give birth around the world each and every day.
Real women warriors put their lives in danger to help others, not for self-aggrandizement. Real women warriors take risks to save the lives of strangers; birth warriors put the lives of their precious babies at risk for bragging rights. Real women warriors are selfless; birth warriors are selfish.
How desperate for attention do you have to be to subvert the language of war to bolster your own self-esteem? Apparently you have to be pathetically desperate.
I suspect nearly all of us recognize Trump’s desperation in denying that John McCain’s five years of torture in a prisoner of war camp makes him a hero, while Trump was presumably heroically evading capture by avoiding the draft. It’s pretty obvious that John McCain has more heroism in his little finger than Trump has in his whole body.
But many may not recognize the desperate need for self-aggrandizement demonstrated by Keibler and other natural childbirth advocates who proclaim themselves warriors, and thereby insult the real warriors among us.
Subverting the language of war for self-aggrandizement is ugly when Donald Trump does it, and it’s equally ugly when Stacy Keibler and other natural childbirth advocates do it.
