Arlington: No Place for Traitors to Feel at Home

By JAMIE STIEHM

History repeats itself: first as tragedy, second as farce. That’s what the German philosopher said.

Lawless former President Donald Trump is breaking this rule in two, as he does for every other. For him, it’s history as farce first, tragedy second. His illegal campaign stunt at Arlington National Cemetery is high tragedy playing out on the stage of American history and sacrifice.

First, a look at the farce.

Getting elected in 2016 was pure clownish fare for Trump and a terrible joke on the American people. Most expected Hillary Clinton to win, even the braggart and grabber himself. But Clinton did win a moral victory: the popular vote.

Straight out of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, a freakish James Comey, the giraffe-like FBI director, actually accused Clinton of doing nothing wrong — twice. His public announcement of closed investigations crimped her lead and (perhaps) put Trump over the top.

Another character, sanguine then-President Barack Obama sailed through the fall season, failing to fire Comey and fill a Supreme Court seat. “Hillary was going to win anyway” was his cool chorus. For flawed false hopes, Obama lost most of his legacy. But that’s OK; he had a memoir to write anyway.

Eight autumns ago, a stunned electorate faced the verdict of the Electoral College. A reality show mogul was taking over the nuclear codes and the character of our country. (Thanks, NBC and CNN.)

The thought that Trump was just a showman came as cold comfort.

For how bad could he be if the nation was in reasonably good shape? He could leave well enough alone, saving theatrics and monologues for the camera. But no, out of the gate, Trump insulted Australia’s prime minister in a courtesy call he abruptly ended.

When Trump first met with congressional leaders, he lied: that he won the popular vote. Speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi spoke up to correct him, according to her bestselling book “The Art of Power.” The other lie was about the crowd size for his “American carnage” inaugural address.

Then came the rogue Supreme Court, the pandemic and the Jan. 6 mob attack on the Capitol, which Trump incited.

Now we know the price paid for Trump’s chaos and violence. President Joe Biden’s legacy is lifting us out of crisis on several fronts. Like the old Roman general Cincinnatus, he gave up power (without a fight) and plans to return home. George Washington did the same.

That leaves us with a choice that could not be clearer. Trump versus a dignified woman of color, Vice President Kamala Harris. His tired game of taunts and lies, laced with misogyny and racism, may not work so well this time.

Bear in mind, this is the first time Trump has faced voters with a criminal conviction, three more indictments and the outrage of Jan. 6 hanging over him, lodged in recent memory.

Armed with knowledge, any undecided voter in a battleground state is likely to swing toward Harris. She looks like a winner, a face of the future. Trump sounds like a desperate, even deranged man.

For him to win now would truly be Shakespearean.

Trump’s campaign photos in Arlington with some families of fallen soldiers broke the law and read as a brazen bit of tragedy. A Trump aide shoved a cemetery official who tried to enforce the rules. These soldiers died carrying out an unwise Trump deal for U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Here’s the rub: Arlington once belonged to the traitorous Robert E. Lee, a Confederate general. The rolling acres were his slave plantation.

As the Civil War broke out, Abraham Lincoln seized Arlington to build a Union Army camp across the river from Washington. Mrs. Lee sullenly surrendered her keys to an enslaved woman.

In the next act of the national drama, the Army began to bury soldiers in Arlington’s gardens and grounds. Lincoln, a new president, was a shrewd political messenger: The blood of young men was on Lee’s hands. This is how Arlington became a military “field of honor.”

Author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Julia Ward Howe was inspired by a visit.

Historical bedfellows, Trump and Lee led insurrections against their government.

How fitting that Trump may have dug his own political grave in Arlington.

Jamie Stiehm is a former assignment editor at CBS News in London, reporter at The Hill, metro reporter at the Baltimore Sun and public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She is author of a new play, “Across the River,” on Aaron Burr. See JamieStiehm.com.

From The Progressive Populist, October 1, 2024

Populist.com