12 September 2018

Remembering 911

Yesterday was the seventeenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. I'm old enough to have been an adult when they happened, so I have a solid memory of the event. Perhaps you do, too.

Donald Trump traveled to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, yesterday to visit the Flight 93 memorial. What he did on the way to the event, however, is what generated the most controversy.

Photographed arriving in Pennsylvania where he was greeted by a small group of supporters, rather than offering sobering or consoling words about the solemn event, he did a double fist pump (details here). He was more focused on the fact that people were cheering for him and not what he was doing there in the first place.

During the lackluster speech itself, which he read awkwardly, he tried to score cheap political points at one point and paused as if expecting applause. The audience was almost entirely silent (details here).

Trump has never shied from using September 11 for self-aggrandizement, a fact which the Washington Post commemorated with an article (link here) titled "Trump’s long history of lying about 9/11 and exploiting it for personal gain."

Prominently featured in the piece is the well documented footage when, on September 11, 2001, itself, Trump did not speak about the tragedy of the Twin Towers falling and thousands dying but the fact that it meant a building he owned had thus become the tallest in lower Manhattan.

He also applied for and received $150,000 from the state of New York from a fund intended to help small businesses affected by the attacks, notwithstanding his company suffered absolutely no damages.

Trump also was documented shortly thereafter telling the lie that he helped clean up at the World Trade Center site, which is complete garbage. All he did was give media interviews outside the temporary safety perimeter.

There is no depth to which Trump will not stoop. There is no situation that he won't try to exploit for personal gain. The man is a parasite.

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