Late night thoughts on Veterans Day…

🧵 1/8 Service was a privilege:
- a special trust & confidence, an adventure, an opportunity to better oneself in the company of many greats

Service was a sacrifice:
- missed events, occasional terror, the loss of friends and one’s youth

Most of all, service was a promise…
2/8

Trump is poised to lose the 2024 election. But let’s be clear: this won’t be the end of his campaign. He and his allies will once again attempt to overturn the results, just like in 2020.

1/12🧵 After the 2020 loss, Trump’s efforts to disrupt the democratic process were unprecedented. It started with baseless claims of voter fraud, amplified by Trump, Giuliani, and others who claimed—without proof—the election was "stolen."

2/12🧵

*TRUMP DOESN'T WANT TO WIN THE ELECTION*

Trump is going to:

Coachella in LA County, California (Oct 12)
Madison Square Garden in New York (Oct 27)

The election? November 5

None of it makes sense, until you think about it the way he does.

Thread 🧵1/13 New York & California are massively blue states.

Trump lost both states by 23+ percentage points in 2020.

No poll of *any* repute has him close in either state this year.

He will lose both states in 2024.

Why is he going, especially with other states so close?

2/13

Trump not only violated the sanctity of Arlington, but he violated the official cemetery conduct.

Below is the official conduct for national military cemeteries. As a reminder, Trump and his team tried to take private photos at Section 60, when asked to stop, Trump staffers verbally and physically assaulted a cemetery staff member.

A few images of Trump world being totally normal and not at all weird. 🧵

First, a collection of people who totally aren’t Batman villains:
1/





Next, some of the normal things they do:

2/

1/🧵
A few awesome lines from @VetsForRL board member Lindsey Schiro in her OpEd in the @fayobserver.

“With the possibility of Donald Trump reclaiming the presidency in November, voices from the veteran’s community must speak up…”

Link at the end… 2/
“…Trump has never understood us, our devotion to service and our faith in each other. We don’t always agree on politics, but we share a common understanding of duty, honor and country.”

1/
A thread on honesty, lies, & Laken Riley.

Last month, a 22yo nursing student was on a run at the University of Georgia. Laken Riley was an innocent woman that was killed by blunt trauma. The man arrested is a Venezuelan in the U.S. illegally and has been charged with murder. 2/
This is a tragedy. A promising young life taken by violence in a place she should be safe.

We clearly need to do a better job of controlling who enters the U.S., both for identifying threats & for making sure everyone here has documentation.

Three years ago, thousands of people broke into the @TheUSCapitol, assaulted @CapitolPolice, and tried to violently stop the peaceful transfer of power.

This insurrection was intentionally fomented by its beneficiary- Donald Trump.

#NeverForgetJanuary6th There will be people today that will tell you that you what you saw happen - in real time - didn’t really happen.

Some of them will have changed their story from condemning the violence to excusing or even denying it.

They’re cowards & crooks.

#NeverForgetJanuary6th

As Trump slinks away, we’re left wondering if perhaps America was lucky.

Lucky that our 1st national taste of fascism came from someone with disastrously good instincts, but without the drive or the competence to pull it off.

Even with thousands of lives destroyed, we escaped. Let us resolve to never come so close to the edge again.

To hold to account those who brought this tragedy, with the law where appropriate, but socially & politically in all cases.

To raise the memories of the fallen and the stories of the abused prominently & respectfully.

Sometimes I wonder what story John Kelly tells himself in the dark hours of the night.

That his “service” of putting children in cages justifies the contempt @realDonaldTrump had for his military career or the sacrifice of his son?

https://twitter.com/mitchellreports/status/1301698974882181120

That Sgt La David Johnson’s widow should be disrespected so he could help @realDonaldTrump send the Kurds to@their slaughter?

Thread:
@VetsForRL, was formed by veterans of the American military who stood not only against @realDonaldTrump, but the infection of Trumpism in the United States.

1/13 Belittling American greatness, kowtowing to despots, and “flood(ing) the zone with shit”, is amongst the many evils of the man and his enablers, but it was his destruction of our common identity that is most troubling.

2/13

newyorker.com/news/news-desk…