Labor Day has passed. Election season is upon us, and the Harris v. Trump Signs will abound.

Meanwhile the MAGA crowd has wasted no time. The Let’s Go Brandon signs have been replaced by American Flags flown in all shapes and colors. We had the upside down flown American flags over the summer, stick attached American Flags flying on cars and trucks, American Flags the size of garage doors up day and night without lighting, American Flags with Trump’s name superimposed on them on car hoods, Truth Social with his felon mugshot superimposed on an American flag, punisher skull stickers outlined on the American flag on cars and trucks. There are many more examples, not limited to the Hulk Hogan body with Trump’s face superimposed on an American Flag.

Then we have the Trump specter cavorting with American flags by wrapping them around him and kissing them.

If curious, the US Department of Veterans Affairs, gives direction on appropriately displaying the American Flag.

https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/celebrate/flagdisplay.pdf

Most recently Trump took illegal photo shoots at an Arlington Cemetery grave sites with thumbs up. Worse, and he and his handlers said the Arlington Cemetery Worker who tried to stop them and they manhandled said she was mentally impaired. He surely has a fixation with the disabled, including disabled and fallen veterans.

Verifiable stories of Trump’s response to General Kelly whose son lost his life in combat are reported and quoted in the right leaning magazine, National Review, Oct. 3, 2023 ‘God Help Us’: John Kelly Confirms Trump Mocked Veterans during Arlington Memorial Service.

Trump’s sullying of the military and veterans include mocking and denigrating John McCain’s years of captivity and torture, who he called a “f***ing loser” and called POWs, those shot down and wounded as “suckers” where “there is nothing in it for them”. There is plenty more. He did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees, Trump showed open contempt for Gold Star Families and ranted that American heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense of democracy are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France. This likely explains his love affair with communist or fascist tyrants and dictators not limited to Putin, Xi Jinping,and Kim Jung Un.

These are not “alternative facts.” They are verifiable in the article cited above and confirmed in a September 2020 article by Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg. Trump used the same “loser” remark about George H.W. Bush, who was also shot down while serving as a pilot in World War II.

No wonder wounded military hero and Senator Tami Duckworth has branded him Cadet Bonespurs, for his Vietnam War so-called disability deferment.

We should fly the American Flag to honor democracy and those who have honorably served to preserve democracy, not as some kind of faux jingoistic emblem or prop.

Could Trump, his progeny, and minions pass the US Citizenship Test given to immigrants. Can he or his minions recite the Star Spangled Banner without a teleprompter? To paragraph the response to the destructive lies of Joseph McCarthy, does Trump have any decency?

Forget about the felony convictions, forget about the financial chicanery, forget the legal findings of fraud, forget the bankruptcies, forget about the findings and his bragging of sexual abuse, forget the disgusting sexist tweets about Harris, forget about the “family” man who would not help his disabled nephew, forget about the mockery of the disabled, forget about the cozying up to antidemocratic dictators, forget about stacking the Supreme Court and the consequences making personal health care decisions impossible for women, or forget about Trump using the courts to avoid trial for felonious indictments and most likely guilt.

Trump’s faux Make America Great Again is a mockery of all that is decent and the sacrifices of our military and everyday Americans.

Jonathan Shutman is a retired educator from Monmouth County.