Trump Talks D-Day, Then and Now: Could America Win WWII Today?
John Griffing
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In his remarks in Normandy, France, marking the 75th anniversary of D–Day, President Donald Trump made pointed distinctions between the country he governs today — and the one that defeated the Nazis in WWII.
Trump’s remarks beg the question: could America, a nation inarguably experiencing political, religious and racial division on a level not witnessed since the Civil War, lead the charge on D-Day if it took place on 2019?
While the president does nothing to sully or throw dirt on America’s image as protector and liberator of the free world in his speech, the unspoken reality consistently contradicts the descriptions of the nation which freed a continent from tyranny, concentration camps, and unfathomable darkness.
“9,388 young Americans rest beneath the white crosses and Stars of David arrayed on these beautiful grounds,” Trump began.
“We come not only because of what they did here. We come because of who they were.”
He then proceeded to tell the the world, who they were:
They were young men with their entire lives before them. They were husbands who said goodbye to their young brides and took their duty as their fate. They were fathers who would never meet their infant sons and daughters because they had a job to do. And with God as their witness, they were going to get it done. They came wave after wave, without question, without hesitation, and without complaint.
The reverse of the above statement is so pervasively true of today’s Americans, however, those who would be called upon to fight. Men are not getting married and starting families. Women are having too few children (while simultaneously supporting post-birth abortion, i.e., infanticide eerily reminiscent of Nazi T-4 medical euthanasia programs). And, if the selective service draft were ever reinstated, pushback would abound. (See, Oakland, 1967, Pentagon, 1967 draft protests.)
But these distinctions are more, or less, symptomatic of the most crucial difference between America today, and the nation that led the community of free nations in a heroic and unparalleled liberation of the European continent.
Trump explains. “More powerful than the strength of American arms was the strength of American hearts.”
“These men ran through the fires of hell moved by a force no weapon could destroy: the fierce patriotism of a free, proud, and sovereign people. (Applause.) They battled not for control and domination, but for liberty, democracy, and self-rule.”
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Here again, the reality, is somewhat different today. When polled by Rassmussen and Gallup, today’s American men do not still believe we are the greatest country in the world, and the emerging Millennial majority replacing Baby Boomers (children of the children of the WWII generation) do not share a robust appreciation for qualities like patriotism, the flag, or support concepts like “sovereignty.”
Millennials, when surveyed, consistently identify with globalist and post-national sentiments; a jetsetting, debt-amassing, globe-trotting generation with as little attachment to America as a Ugandan junta.
Trump continues:
They pressed on for love in home and country — the Main Streets, the schoolyards, the churches and neighbors, the families and communities that gave us men such as these.
They were sustained by the confidence that America can do anything because we are a noble nation, with a virtuous people, praying to a righteous God.
The exceptional might came from a truly exceptional spirit. The abundance of courage came from an abundance of faith. The great deeds of an Army came from the great depths of their love.
As they confronted their fate, the Americans and the Allies placed themselves into the palm of God’s hand.
In Trump’s words is the most startling and yet fundamentally important distinction between the boys of Normandy and America’s emerging generation of men: God. They prayed to him, they believed God belonged in the public square, and not cowering in churches hoping their tax exempt status remained untouched.
God was just part of life. Good was good. Wrong was wrong. Trump’s willingness to ackowledge the role of God in a military and political struggle is bold for a president, and even uncharacteristic of most Normady speeches by presidents — because of the way the president spoke of God.
Ronald Reagan is the only other American president to emphasize the religious convictions of the Normandy liberators, and consequently the concept of absolute rights and wrongs, without which — Nazism is just another system.
Reagan’s remarks can be viewed below:
Trump does not say, but again, what he doesn’t say is evident to all as an unspoken comment: America is no longer a nation of moral absolutes, and Godly parishioners, but one of moral relativists and socially-nominal “Christians.”
The Pew Religious Lanscape Survey for the last 10 years tracked a growing majority of Christians who report they believe there are other paths to God, and a shocking drop in weekly church attendance to 30 percent.
We are not a nation that can even agree on infanticide being illegal.
Trump concluded his remarks:
Seven decades ago, the warriors of D-Day fought a sinister enemy who spoke of a thousand-year empire. In defeating that evil, they left a legacy that will last not only for a thousand years, but for all time — for as long as the soul knows of duty and honor; for as long as freedom keeps its hold on the human heart.
…
The blood that they spilled, the tears that they shed, the lives that they gave, the sacrifice that they made, did not just win a battle. It did not just win a war. Those who fought here won a future for our nation. They won the survival of our civilization. And they showed us the way to love, cherish, and defend our way of life for many centuries to come.
Once more, Trump makes a silent observation as to the state of the country he governs, by mentioning the fact WWII was an existential crisis, and that victory meant the “survival of civilization.” Conversely, defeat meant the end of civilization.
Civilization requires confidence in the values and system that it represents. America is not so noble, our system survives (but with coup d’etats hangs by a thread) and the values that once defined our raison d’etre are being dismantled by a counterculture tsunami.
Reagan’s D-Day address expressed similar sentiments. “It was faith and belief. …The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge … that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest you were here to liberate not to conquer.”
“You all knew that some things are worth dying for; one’s country s worth dying for and democracy is worth dying for,” Reagan thundered solemly.
Trump honored D-Day’s heroes, but with a silent tongue cautioned our citizens about the future.
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