Updated and reposted from a previous Memorial Day

This is the last Memorial Day before the 2020 election and I fear the meaning of this day may be gasping its last breath.

The tag line of Memorial Day is Honor and Remember.  There’s even an organization by that name, you can read about them HERE.

A motorcycle rider of questionable mental capacity (let’s call him Big Joe) often berated fellow motorcyclists wearing Honor and Remember patches because it reminded him of the flag of Vietnam.

Joe is one of a growing legion of pseudo patriots who know only bumper stickers and slogans, with no regard or compassion for fellow Americans or humans.

Honoring and remembering is simple; a small gesture to those who literally sacrificed their lives for ours.

They are mostly hollow words now, like thoughts and prayers.

A student in Parkland, Florida appropriately told our lawmakers where to stick their thoughts and prayers.

Part of the problem is that we don’t seem to know who to honor or what to remember.  Reverence for once cherished institutions has eroded and been replaced by a dangerous new jingoism.

The soundtrack of the Trump era may well be, Jews will not replace us.

People who call themselves “patriots” cheer the degradation of American democracy, falling victim to whackos like Franklin Graham and Mark Taylor who portray Donald Trump as anointed by God.

Mass hysteria is a real thing.

There’s hardly a man or woman in America who wouldn’t be a better choice to lead this nation to moral clarity than Donald Trump.

John McCain was a national treasure PERIOD

If he never got shot down over Vietnam or captured, he would still be an American hero.  His service to our nation puts him on a level untouchable by anyone named Trump.

But McCain did get shot down and captured and spent years in captivity at the mercy of brutal captors.

When offered release from the hell hole known as “Hanoi Hilton,” McCain refused to leave his men.  Is that not the definitive example of valor, patriotism and integrity?

How Trump survived his first attack on McCain remains a mystery.

Trump found an audience for his attacks and he continued them even past McCain’s death.  The U.S. Navy had to move a warship (USS John S. McCain) to keep it from Trump’s view while he was in Japan.

That was a seismic shift in what anyone would call honoring and remembering.

Trump attacked Gold Star parents, Khizr and Ghazala Khan and newly widowed Gold Star wife, Myeshia Johnson.

Before Trump, who respects nothing (not even himself), Gold Star families commanded only the utmost respect.

Trump says that he knows “more than the generals” and blames them for his military failures.

Today we have 100,000 dead Americans, many of whom perished because of a failed leader, a man who wants you to see those fatalities as a success story.

When we look back at this time, exactly whom will we be honoring and remembering?  I shudder to think.

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