Trump’s defiling of Arlington National Cemetery should be a campaign-ending event

We’re all aware by now of Donald Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery in which he and his team showed a total lack of respect to the soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country, to the Cemetery, and to the military itself. It turns out that this show of disrespect was worse than we thought.

It started out well enough. Trump laid three wreaths at a ceremony to honor the 13 Americans who lost their lives while American forces were pulling out of Afghanistan. He was certainly welcome to do so as a former president. He seemed to walk where he was supposed to walk and stand where he was supposed to stand. So far, so good.

Then, two Gold Star families reportedly invited him to a private ceremony in Section 60 of the Cemetery, which is where soldiers from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are buried. There’s nothing wrong with that. Trump, like anyone else, is free to pay his respects to our fallen soldiers.

However, Trump wanted to bring his campaign staff and photographers to the private ceremony. That’s a problem. It’s a violation of federal law to stage any campaign-related activities on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery or any other military cemetery. Trump’s team was notified of this when they arrived.

We’ve seen this weird photograph of Trump and what we assume are the family members of one of the soldiers buried in Section 60, with Trump smiling and giving his thumbs-up gesture. Who does that? How the hell does that show any respect to these fallen soldiers? The guy has the social IQ of a brick.

That Trump’s activities at Arlington were part of a campaign event are beyond question. Photos taken there were posted on Trump’s campaign TikTok page.

A cemetery official attempted to intervene in order to prevent Trump’s team from violating federal law and violating the sanctity of Arlington National Cemetery. She was physically shoved aside. It was enough of an altercation that the Army issued a statement describing the assault and praising the professionalism of the official. The Army is very reluctant to issue statements of this kind during a campaign, which tells you how bad this was.

The official has declined to press charges out of fear of retaliation from Trump’s supporters. It’s quite understandable, especially considering that Trump’s campaign spokesman Stephen Cheung and campaign advisor Chris LaCivita have disparaged her. They could have apologized and said “oopsie, we didn’t know,” which would have been a lie but at least an effort at human decency. But they couldn’t even bring themselves to do that. Such are the kind of low-lifes that inhabit Trump’s campaign organization.

Then LaCivita posted a video to X with the caption “Reposting this hoping to trigger the hacks at @SecArmy”. The “hacks at @SecArmy”? That’s some serious disrespect. How can anyone think that Trump, his staff or his supporters give a shit about the military?

Believe it or not, this gets even worse. Look more closely at the first photo, particularly at the top of Major Navas’ headstone on the left. Here’s a close-up:

What is that? A cell phone? I looked up Major Navas’ grave online, and there was nothing on top of the headstone. Major Navas died in Iraq in 2020 while clearing a tunnel complex of Islamic State fighters. His headstone is not to be used as a table! He has his family are now associated with Trump and this campaign stunt whether they want to be or not.

Trump and his people did all of this just so they could say that Trump showed up at the third anniversary ceremony of Abbey Gate, and neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris came. I would have infinitely preferred that Trump had not come compared to the desecration he perpetrated. And by the way, where was Trump on the first or second anniversary of Abbey Gate? Not at Arlington National Cemetery. He just happens to show up this year, when there’s a campaign in progress. To Trump, our military personnel are just pawns to be used in the furtherance of his goals.

This should be a campaign-ending event for Trump. It sure would be if Harris or Walz had done this. But although the mainstream media has covered this story, in the end Trump will get a pass as he always does.