Using patriotic sentiment slips into xenophobia, chauvinism, and jingoism, all of which are displayed in Trump and Republican Party behavior. Those things are dangerous for America, a threat to Democracy far greater than migrants at the border.
Making America great is about embracing economic, social, and environmental responsibility, the rule of law, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the Trump administration fails to do. Therefore, in the eyes of the world, We the People are failing.
World Wars I and II were seeded by dictatorial regimes that were bent on nationalism. Trump's presence at the WWI Memorial in France is an affront and embarrassment as he demonstrates the lessons were not learned.
The wars were won and authoritarianism defeated by combined forces from democracies. Now, the free-world cannot depend on America while Trump is in office.
"President Trump will join a group of more than 60 world leaders in France this weekend to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. The war lives on in the Western imagination as a hideous (and arguably needless) conflict that killed millions, turned the fields of Europe into moonscapes, collapsed empires and prefigured an even bloodier war a generation later. Its memory and legacy still offer profound lessons for the present.
In hosting the ceremonies, French President Emmanuel Macron hopes to score a political point. World War I was a clash of violent nationalist passions, fueled by a coterie of power-hungry elites. Now there’s a rising tide of nationalism in Europe, with far-right leaders in Western Europe and illiberal statesmen in countries such as Hungary challenging the liberal ideals of the European Union and the cooperation and multilateralism that once guaranteed its prosperity."
The Washington Post
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