Only a 12-minute shindig
Trump’s Spite the Eagles party was a dud.
Donald Trump’s “celebration of America” at the White House, hastily put together on Tuesday in the absence of Super Bowl winners the Philadelphia Eagles, proved that rare thing in the Trump era: an anti-climax.
“I was surprised from the ordeal to get here that it was only a 12-minute shindig,” said Emma Wittstruck Call, 30, who did not vote for the president. “I thought it would be longer.”
Trump handed more ammunition to critics who compare him to a tinpot dictator wrapping himself in the flag and appealing to cheap patriotism. He did not mention the Eagles or attempt to heal divisions.
The event on the south lawn had been intended to follow the tradition of US presidents welcoming the national football champions to the White House. But on Monday night Trump disinvited the Eagles after learning that fewer than 10 players planned to attend, reopening his feud with American athletes over protests during the national anthem.
So there were some flags, and Trump said words for four minutes, and then the US marine band and the US army chorus played “God Bless America” so that we could see mandatory patriotism and mandatory godbothering combined in one crap song.
At the daily White House briefing on Tuesday afternoon, Sanders seemed to attempt again to cast the NFL team in a bad light with its followers, saying “the Eagles are the ones that changed their commitment at the last minute … and the president thinks that the fans deserve better than that.”
“Certainly,” she added, “we would hope that all of the people of Pennsylvania would share the Potus’s commitment to the national anthem and pride that we have in the country.”
No. We’re not required to demonstrate pride in the country, especially when it’s under the thumb of an ignorant sadistic crook. We’re even less required to share “commitment” to any particular song, even if people do label it “the national anthem.” It’s just a song. It’s just a symbol. It’s just advertising. We don’t have to share it or be committed to it or bend the knee to it or anything else. It’s none of Sarah Sanders’s or Donald Trump’s business whether or not we show deference to a song. Sanders shouldn’t be spending official time trying to shame us into it.
Brilliant stuff, OB.
America could do a helluva lot worse than vote you in as POTUS. Why not give it a go next time round? I would personally urge all the Americans I know to vote for you.
Slogan: Make America rational again…! Could not possibly lose. (No, on second thoughts, disregard that last bit.)
You’ve got my vote! And I’ll work hard for your campaign, even among Americans I don’t know…
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa good lord I’d be terrible at it.
Worse than Predizent Dunning-Kruger himself?
“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa good lord I’d be terrible at it.”
Knowing that shows that you’d be better at it than the currant occupant of the position.
@3, anyone who actually wants the job probably shouldn’t be given the job.
But Ophelia doesn’t want the job, so she qualifies. ;-)
Well argued.
Did someone actually use the phrase “the Potus”? Spoken aloud? How did they pronounce “potus”?
pote-us?
pot-us?
Potatus, Potatos.
Did anybody make such a fuss over ‘God Bless America’ before 9/11? I don’t recall it EVER being a ‘national’ song of much significance before then….Kate Smith on the radio, sure, but not all that much beyond that.
Its as if some PR flack decided that 9/11 was a chance to inject the godly-goddish bit into public life and make it a compulsory gesture. Like sticking ‘god’ into the pledge in 1954.
Heh. Not wanting the job may be a qualification – although, to be piously humorless for a moment, it’s too akin to “drain the swamp” bullshit for that to be really a good filter – but it’s nowhere near a complete qualification. Debatably necessary but reeeeeeally not sufficient. See: Trump, passim.
But I came here to reply to the Kate Smith question. I think it’s had a weird quasi-official status for some time…longer than 17 years. We do a lot of that quasi-officializing, which is no doubt why Trump is so convinced that standing up for The Song is mandatory.
To add to the Kate Smith question – I think to some extent it depended on where you were in the country. In my homeland (Oklahoma) it was nearly omnipresent throughout most of my sojourn there – which started in 1970, so definitely before 9/11. We sang it in school vocal music classes. We sang it in church. We sang it at home. It was everywhere.
I think what 9/11 did was give other parts of the country “permission” to behave like the most regressive, most god-fearing, most woman-hating, most foreigner-hating parts of the country. On steroids.