On Thursday’s “Morning Joe,” an MSBNC guest attacked President Trump for describing his visits to the Dover Air Force Base, the location where fallen soldiers return home.
During a White House press conference, Trump discussed how painful it was to watch mothers, wives, and family members see their loved one’s caskets for the first time. Trump explained how watching these young men and women come home in a casket was reason enough for him to end “senseless” wars and pull out of Syria.
The MSNBC guest, retired Admiral James Stavridis, claimed Trump’s description of what happens at Dover Air Force Base was the politicization of a very emotional situation.
“Here is the President, effectively acting like a camera, describing in very emotional, private detail what happens there. It’s inappropriate, that’s why we don’t have cameras in situations like that,” Stavridis said.
However, the dramatic retelling of personal stories for political benefit is not a trait found only in President Trump.
The 2020 Democrats have used their personal stories to make political gains on the campaign trail as well. Joe Biden gave a dramatic account of his travels to Afghanistan, where he was awarding a heroic soldier with a medal. In Biden’s recount of the story, the soldier resisted the honor out of guilt for another soldier being killed.
Reports came to the conclusion that Biden was conflating three different stories into one story that never happened. Biden was hoping to make political gains by highlighting his previous work with the military.
Elizabeth Warren joined the ranks of Biden when she promulgated false stories of her ancestry and getting fired for being pregnant. While neither stories were true, she used these falsehoods of race and gender discrimination to make a political gain with racial minorities and women.
Trump describing his time honoring fallen troops in Dover is not just an innately Trumpian characteristic. It is a characteristic held by all politicians that look to connect with their audience and reason their policy positions with the American people.
