Look, I have been working Memorial Day weekends in Atlantic City for thirty years. I have seen things on the boardwalk. I have watched a man propose at 2 a.m. in a hot tub. I have served a drink to a guy in a tuxedo holding a goldfish in a plastic bag. I have, personally, pulled three different toupees out of a koi pond.
I have never seen anybody walk into a Memorial Day ceremony and open with Happy Memorial Day to everybody, including the people I think are stupid.
The President did that at six forty-one in the morning.
The post.
Quote, verbatim, from his Truth Social account: Happy Memorial Day to all, including the Dumocrats, who disrespect our Military and all of the tremendous success that it has had over the last year. A few minutes later, in case the first one was too subtle, this followup: The Dumocrats have BAD POLICY, AND BAD CANDIDATES. Other than that, they are doing quite well!
Dumocrats. With a U. Memorial Day. Six forty-one a.m.
This is a guy who used to sell hotel rooms for a living. The first rule of selling hotel rooms is you do not insult the people walking in the door. You smile. You take the credit card. You hand them the key. You save the opinions for the back office.
The President was standing in the door of the casino on a holiday morning and he insulted half the customers as they came in. With a typo.
What Memorial Day is for.
Memorial Day is not Veterans Day. Memorial Day is for the people who did not come back. The military families on the boardwalk this weekend, the ones with the photographs and the small American flags, they were not having a political debate. They were having a quiet morning. A heavy one, if you have ever been around it.
You do not interrupt that morning to score a point. You do not write Dumocrats into the federal-government version of the obituary page. You absolutely do not press send at six forty-one a.m. and then come back, ten minutes later, to swing again.
The President did all three.
A piece of advice from the pit.
When I was a pit boss the rule was simple. If you cannot smile at the table you came to host, you leave the floor. You send somebody else out. You take a walk. The room is bigger than you, and the people in it are sadder than they look.
He did not leave the floor. He picked up his phone and started swinging at the people he was supposed to be honoring.
That is not toughness. That is losing the room.
Happy Memorial Day to all, including the Dumocrats.
The breakdown.
- Factual basis Newsweek confirmed both Truth Social posts and the timing on the first one.23/25
- Self-awareness On Memorial Day morning the President posted twice within minutes, swinging both times.4/20
- Staff containment Neither post came down. The official White House Memorial Day proclamation went out on a separate channel.8/20
- Recovery attempt He doubled down rather than walked it back.5/15
- Public spectacle Newsweek, Salon, The Hill, and overseas wires covered the morning. A holiday-news pile-on.14/20
Was this dumb enough?
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