Trump’s Medal Fixation Explored

The prize often is less about a person’s role in one specific thing, but about a long history of tangible effort that has resulted in making things better, from the community all the way up to the state, national and even international level. Conservatives love to mock Obama for having been a “Community Organizer.” He had a chance after getting an Ivy League degree to take a high paying gig somewhere and instead went to the south side of Chicago. A group of ministers offered him thousand bucks a month and a beat up old used care to try and develop programs that would benefit a blighted area where there was little opportunity and hope. He established after school study programs, worker/job skills training and developing connections with the business community to help people develop the tools to get jobs. He developed programs of advocacy to help people work with landlords to improve housing. And so on. By the time he left for Harvard Law school he’d established a solid foundation for the non-profit he built from scratch and was already making a positive difference on the south side to keep growing and it did exactly that. As an Illinois legislator he (and his wife) worked hard on veteran’s issues (inspired I think by his grandfather who fought in combat in WWII) and by extension developed a philosophy many of us (including this ole jarhead) share which is that you fight IF you have to because war should only be engaged in when it’s the least shitty option on the table. In the Senate he kept quiet but diligently went to work putting that into action, and paired up with a Senior Senator from neighboring Indiana (Richard Lugar) to shape landmark arms control legislation that included some specific work to address an evolving and hugely dangerous matter that had developed with securing nuclear weapons and materials overseas. This was at a time when Putin was on the rise and there were a LOT of concerns. That legislation, both on WMD and controlling the spread of more conventional weapons mattered at a crucial time. I’d say that is some serious work that promoted peace. In a country that still carries a strong strain of racism he organized and ran a successful Presidential campaign that did not as so many feared result in riots or civil unrest. Then, inheriting the biggest domestic and international financial crisis since the events that triggered the Great Depression, at a time when the whole system was collapsing he got things stabilized and made decisions that got us and the rest of the world back on solid footing, preventing a breakdown of this and other societies. He took difficult, tough, hopeless situations that even posed danger and made them better starting back with his oft mocked days as a community organizer. He promoted and effective positive, peaceful change from the community to the national to the international level. He willingly took on seemingly intractable problems and set about fixing them. He took shitty situations and made them better, which promotes peace. YOUR hero Trump both starting in 2016 and a year ago took good situations and turned them to shit. Chew on THAT for a while dude!