Trump visited a war zone for the first time yesterday. He lied about a ten percent pay raise for the troops, made inappropriate remarks about Democrats, and succeeded in offending his Iraqi hosts, who are now calling for the departure of the troops. One imagines that he demanded that the troops thank him for his service, as well.
On a related note, the NYT ran an article yesterday which indicated that Trump got his medical deferment through a corrupt deal involving his father and a doctor. The question for today is, should that matter? It was, after all, a long time ago, and one can certainly understand why anyone would go to great lengths to avoid the draft.
The answer is yes, for two reasons. First, someone who is putting troops in harm’s way requires a degree of moral authority to do it; second, his strongest adherents object to minorities getting “cuts in line,” and this was the quintessential “cut in line.”