A touch of glam
If there’s a way to get it wrong, he will find that way. If there’s a way to get it horribly wrong he’ll find that too.
Trump made a bold accessory choice while attending the dignified transfer of six U.S. service members killed in his war with Iran.
Trump, 79, stood as six coffins covered in American flags were solemnly carried from an aircraft to a waiting vehicle at Delaware’s Dover Air Force Base on Saturday afternoon. On Trump’s head sat a gold-embroidered white hat with the letters “USA” on the front, “45-47″ on one side, and the American flag on the other.
The $55 cap is available to purchase on the president’s merch website.
Well so he saw an opportunity to do a little quiet marketing and he took it. What’s the big deal?
Based on publicly available images, the president’s baseball cap, which he has never worn during a dignified transfer, drew immediate outrage. No other U.S. president has worn a baseball hat during a dignified transfer, based on publicly available images.
California governor and top Trump critic Gavin Newsom wrote above a video shared by the White House, “Take your hat off, you disgusting little man.”
Well it’s not a hat, it’s a baseball cap. It’s a very affordable baseball cap at a mere 55 dollars.
“This fool has ABSOLUTELY no sense of dignity or appreciation for the moment,” wrote former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele on X. “It is called the Dignified Transfer for a reason. Take your damn hat off!!” Political strategist Chris D. Jackson wrote, “Trump just wore a campaign hat to a dignified transfer for fallen U.S. soldiers that were killed during his Iranian blunder.”
Guys guys guys it’s called marketing. There is no higher calling than peddling overpriced baseball hats that double as advertising for a loathsome crook.
Trump has no notion of honour, service, or sacrifice. They are alien concepts to him, other than they should be one way streets going in his direction. Everyone should honour him, serve him, sacrifice to or for him. That these could be mutual or altruistic actions, actions for someone other than the person performing them is completely incomprehensible. He can’t even put on an appearance or go through the motions. He is a broken, morally crippled man. It is frightening to think that his tens of millions of followers are equally broken and stunted, but how else could they not see it in him. He is an empty, heartless fraud.
Propriety, consideration, courtesy, respect for others — Trump lacks way too many characteristics for him to be considered a decent human being. He’s simply a stupid slob.
In other news (or rather not), after a cursory survey of all the big news sites, guess what? Zero mention of the Epstein files since he waged war on Iran. At least one of his “objectives” have been met. Not that he’d make any of those so called “objectives” public or be honest about them. Yeah, honesty, there’s another one.
As you noted, it’s a baseball cap emblazoned with a marketing message. He may think marketing messages praising all things Trump are the height of patriotism, but they are marketing messages regardless, and he’s wrong.
Trump doesn’t know protocols and doesn’t care. Uniformed military personnel, as I understand it, salute at military funerals. Trump saluted. He’s done this kind of thing before, if I recall correctly, saluting at an occasion where only military people salute. He should know, it’s disgraceful that he doesn’t, but it’s an easy mistake for someone to make who doesn’t pay any attention to such things.
So I think Newsom misses the point. The emblazoned cap is the bigger problem, rather than him saluting instead of removing his cap. The cap was entirely inappropriate in that ceremony, even if Trump had followed the accepted protocol by removing it.
Well sure it’s an easy mistake for someone to make who doesn’t pay any attention to such things, but nevertheless when the someone is President and the such things are protocols at ceremonies around the deaths of military personnel sacrificed at the altar of that president, they’re easy mistakes that should never ever be made.
I’ve lived 70 years without having to know there was a special ritual called a ‘dignified transfer.’ Do they have other kinds?