Scott Gurvey's Public Offerings

The post above was made on his personal social media account by the man 77 million Americans sent back to the Oval Office. It was repeated by the official account of the White House. It is literally a declaration of war by Donald Trump on a major America City. MAGA apologists have been scrambling to pass it off as a joke, a cute and meaningless quip. It is not.

This is simply disgusting.

The meme Trump posts is a take on a scene from the movie Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola’s epic set during the war in Vietnam. That’s the war Trump sat out, having found a doctor to write him a medical excuse saying he could not serve because he had “bone spurs.” Fifty-Eight thousand Americans died in that war. Most had been involuntarily drafted.

The story follows a secret mission undertaken by Captain Willard, played by Martin Sheen, who has been tasked with assassinating Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando. Kurtz is a renegade Special Forces officer who is accused of murder and presumed insane.

Trump’s face in the meme appears in place of the character Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, played by Robert Duvall. In the film, Kilgore describes the smell of napalm after a helicopter bombing raid, equating it to the smell of victory. Kilgore exclaims, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

This is our commander-in-chief exalting over an image of helicopters dropping napalm on the Chicago skyline. The text on the meme reads, “Chipocalypse Now.” The text of Trump’s post reads, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning…. Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of War.”

The use of the military to stage deportation raids in Los Angeles has already been found to be illegal. The use of the military to stage deportation raids in Chicago would be equally illegal.

This is not normal. This meme is the work of a man in desperate need of help. Until he gets that help, he should not be allowed to use sharp objects. Or the United States Army.

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