Vox.com’s Alex Ward is wrong. President Trump was the right man to give the speech he delivered at this week’s D-Day celebrations in Normandy, France.
Trump’s eloquent address, which spoke to the shared cause of sovereign democratic nations, reflected his better moral impulses. It also reminded Europeans that America remains a reliable friend.
Ward sees it differently. He offers three less-than-compelling rationales for his argument.
His first point is that Trump avoided military service in his younger years. This, Ward suggests, makes Trump’s stirring rhetoric paper-thin. I disagree. Many American presidents have avoided service, some for better reasons than bone spurs. Still, presidents are not supposed to be military officers. They are supposed to be representatives of the better virtues of a people. Trump often falls short here, but his words this week were distinctly presidential. To require a president to have served is to require something un-American.
Ward’s second point is even more silly. He laments Trump’s support for Brexit and the president’s complaints over European defense spending. These things, Ward says, show that Trump doesn’t respect the European alliance.
I could not disagree more strongly. Trump’s complaints on European defense spending have actually made NATO stronger. In that and more, they are morally justified. Whatever you think about Brexit, the sustaining of European security under NATO will not be affected by that decision. Indeed, in its manifestation of popular democratic will, Brexit reflects the better values of that which triumphed over Nazism.
Finally, Ward complains that Trump insulted former special counsel Robert Mueller the morning of his address. I agree that this reflects bad leadership from Trump, but it is largely irrelevant to the speech. Trump said what a president should say on the 75th anniversary of D-Day, and he said it well. It was about the boys who fought and died, not Mueller. Trump’s predecessor spoke eloquently but often failed when it came to necessary actions for Western security. But I do not remember many conservatives attacking Barack Obama’s words on the 70th anniversary of D-Day.
Nonetheless, Ward was right about one thing: “If Trump really wants to honor D-Day’s heroes, he should live and work by their values from here on out.”
