Trump Using U.S. Troops as Political Props

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

For the past couple of weeks Donald Trump has been braying about a “caravan” of 7,000 Central Americans that was heading for the U.S. southern border.  Now better estimates are that this bedraggled parade of impoverished refugees numbers no more than 3,500, and the Mexican government is offering them sanctuary in Mexico.  The number ultimately arriving at our border and seeking refuge in a nation where almost everyone is an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants looks as though it will be diminished to a mere trickle.

But Donald Trump has his heart set on having the United States posed in a combative stance for purely political reasons, and to insure that the news coverage reflects his personal toughness, he is ordering even more U.S. troops to the border.  Last week it appeared as though 800 uniformed men and women would deploy along the border with Mexico – but now that number has suddenly increased to fifty-two-hundred.

Fewer immigrants and many more troops.  Those professors at Wharton Business School apparently didn’t do such a bang-up job in teaching math – or logic.

But whether it’s one soldier being sent to the U.S.-Mexico border or one million, is that a proper role for our military to be playing?    Do we really need that many highly trained individuals heading south to serve as little more than political props in Donald Trump's culture wars?  

Donald Trump has been in office nearly two years now, and during that time he has played a LOT of golf. During that time he has also stayed well away from our military troops who are on the front lines fighting to defend democracy.  Trump has never visited a war zone.  Does he have any real knowledge of why we have a military, or are our service men and women just there for him to manage and manipulate – like so much hotel staff?

If Trump wants to pepper the news with images of the United States standing firm against shoeless, ragged, and hungry brown people, he should go the border himself and pose for his own damned photographs.  Surely to God there is a golf course somewhere close to the Rio Grande.

And meanwhile, send those troops to Puerto Rico where they are desperately needed and could do some real good!