Opinion | As Biden rallies the free world, Trump serves a higher cause: Himself (2024)

In France, Biden rhapsodized about “the story of America” told by the rows of graves at the Normandy America Cemetery: “Nearly 10,000 heroes buried side by side, officers and enlisted, immigrants and native-born, different races, different faiths, but all Americans.”

In Phoenix, Trump, invoked the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, saying Biden had orchestrated an “invasion” at the border as part of “a deliberate demolition of our sovereignty” because “they probably think these people are going to be voting.”

Biden hailed NATO, the “greatest military alliance in the history of the world,” and vowed to defend Ukraine: “To bow down to dictators is simply unthinkable. Were we to do that, it means we’d be forgetting what happened here on these hallowed beaches.”

Trump hailed a modern-day tyrant, Hungary’s Viktor Orban (“strong man, very powerful man”), complained about “endless wars” and “delinquent” Europeans, and vowed to “spend our money in our country” — including by “moving thousands of troops, if necessary, currently stationed overseas to our own borders.”

Biden honored the heroes of Operation Overlord, who launched an invasion to liberate a continent knowing “the probability of dying was real.” Trump promised the “largest domestic deportation operation” in U.S. history.

Biden spoke powerfully about the threat to democracy then, and now: “In their hour of trial, the Allied forces of D-Day did their duty. Now, the question for us is, in our hour of trial, will we do ours? We’re living in a time when democracy is more at risk across the world than at any point since the end of World War II, since these beaches were stormed in 1944. Now, we have to ask ourselves: Will we stand against tyranny? … Will we defend democracy? Will we stand together? My answer is yes, and only can be yes.”

And Trump? Though he posted on social media about the “immortal heroes who landed at Normandy,” his message in Phoenix was full of self-absorbed thoughts on his “rigged trial in New York” and nihilistic commentary: “It’s all fake. Impeachment is a fake. The court cases are a disgrace to our country. Everything is fake.” He went on: “I don’t like using the word ‘bulls---’ in front of these beautiful children, so I will not say it.”

The crowd struck up a chant: “Bulls---! Bulls---! Bulls---!”

Trump laughed.

Biden’s speech was an important attempt to rally Europeans, and Americans, against the far-right nationalists who threaten the free world. “Isolationism was not the answer 80 years ago, and it’s not the answer today,” he warned. “The autocrats of the world are watching closely to see what happens in Ukraine, to see if we let this illegal aggression go unchecked. We cannot let that happen. To surrender to bullies, to bow down to dictators, is simply unthinkable.”

Such lofty ideals are foreign to Trump, who serves no cause greater than himself. He skipped a visit to an American military cemetery in France in 2018 because it was filled with “suckers” and “losers,” according to John Kelly, who was his chief of staff at the time. Trump denies that, but there’s no denying that during the 75th D-Day commemoration in Normandy in 2019, he used the gravestones of fallen heroes as the backdrop for a Fox News interview full of slashing political attacks. His message has only become more vulgar since then.

In Phoenix, he was participating in an event hosted by right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk, who has said, among other things, that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was “awful” and that “we made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act.” Trump called onto the stage former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio, whom he had pardoned for criminal contempt of court related to his racial profiling and abusive treatment of migrants in Arizona. Trump gave him a hug and a kiss, and Arpaio called Trump “the only hero I ever had in my life.”

Will Americans recognize their country in the dark and desperate portrait Trump painted? “Our country is falling to pieces,” he said, and if he isn’t returned to power, “the country is finished … You won’t have a country anymore.” Trump described a nation full of “crooked people” and serving as “a dumping ground for the dungeons of the Third World.”

Or will Americans instead choose to see a nation still striving to fulfill the higher purpose that Biden described? “In memory of those who fought here, died here, literally saved the world here, let us be worthy of their sacrifice,” he said. “Let us be the generation that, when history is written about our time in 10, 20, 30, 50, 80 years from now, it’ll be said when the moment came, we met the moment. We stood strong. Our alliances were made stronger, and we saved democracy in our time, as well.”

He was sentenced to play round after round of arduous golf — including some very challenging par 5s!

He was forced to endure the harsh confines of his triplex at Trump Tower, his compound at Mar-a-Lago and his Boeing 757.

He was exposed to the dangerous conditions of an Ultimate Fighting Championship event — ringside, no less — for more than three hours.

He was even subjected to the most cruel and unusual punishments: a 90-minute interview with “Fox & Friends Weekend,” an hour with Sean Hannity and even a harrowing one-on-one with Newsmax.

Finally, he was transported all the way to Phoenix on Thursday and forced to experience the adoration of ardent supporters at a campaign event.

And you thought Alexei Navalny had it bad.

Of course, Trump, though a convicted felon, is not in prison, nor is he likely to be when he’s sentenced next month. In reality, he undertook all of the suffering mentioned above of his own free will. But he sees great value in proclaiming himself a “political prisoner,” as his campaign did in a fundraising pitch almost immediately after he was convicted last week. Biden, asked by NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell to react to Trump’s claim that Biden had taken him prisoner, could come up with no response other than a dumbfounded smile — which the Trump campaign determined was the “look of evil.”

“Did you see that sick smile?” Trump asked in another pitch to supporters. “HE’S SMILING BECAUSE HE HAS YOU IN HIS SIGHTS!”

Hmmm. What was Trump trying to do by telling his followers that he had been taken prisoner by his opponent and suggesting that Biden now had a loaded gun aimed at them? If it weren’t clear enough, Trump directly threatened violence in his “Fox & Friends Weekend” interview, which aired Sunday. If he were imprisoned or put under house arrest, “I’m not sure the public would stand for it,” he said. “You know, at a certain point, there’s a breaking point.”

At the start of his campaign event in Phoenix on Thursday, where supporters waved posters of Trump’s mug shot with the words “Never Surrender,” a video played featuring Trump’s frequent warning that his supporters are in danger: “They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you, and I just happen to be standing in their way.”

Trump has made many such violent threats over the past couple of years, as The Post’s Aaron Blake noted: Predicting after the FBI retrieved classified documents from Mar-a-Lago that “people are so angry” it could mean “terrible things are going to happen”; warning after his indictment in the hush money case of “potential death & destruction” and saying “OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED, AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL!”; foreseeing “bedlam in the country” if he were prosecuted; and, asked whether there will be violence if he loses in November, responding: “It depends.”

Trump’s brand has always been about driving people to desperation and paranoia. He was doing it at Trump Tower the morning after his New York conviction, saying the judge in the hush money case was a “crazed” “devil” who “literally crucified” defense witnesses. And he again told his supporters that they were targets: “If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone. These are bad people. These are in many cases, I believe, sick people.”

He poked the paranoid again with his “Fox & Friends Weekend” appearance on Sunday, warning darkly about “the enemy from within” doing more “damage to this country” than Russia or China.

On Tuesday, he threatened that, in response to the imaginary “weaponization” of the Justice Department that he and his MAGA followers have conjured, he would actually weaponize the Justice Department against his opponents if he regains power. “It’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to, and it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them,” he warned on Newsmax.

He repeated the threat on Hannity’s show the next day, saying he would have “every right” to prosecute his political opponents. Hannity repeatedly tried to get Trump to refute the belief “that you want retribution, that you will use the system of justice to go after your political enemies.” But Trump, hemming and hawing, wouldn’t do it: “Look, I know you want me to say something so nice,” he said, “but I don’t want to look naive.”

Never mind that the Justice Department had no role in the cases where courts have so far ruled against Trump: the state hush money case (in which Trump was convicted on 34 counts for falsifying business records), the New York business fraud case (in which a judge ordered him to pay $355 million because he lied about his assets) or in the sexual abuse and defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll (in which he was ordered to pay $88 million). And never mind that at the pinnacle of this supposedly weaponized justice system is a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) called for the high court to “step in” and invalidate Trump’s conviction before the case goes through the appeals process. Johnson assured Fox News viewers that the justices were in Trump’s corner. “I know many of them personally,” he said, and “they’ll set this straight.”

Trump and his allies want revenge, regardless of the merits. Old Trump hand Steve Bannon said that the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) “should be — and will be — jailed” for his role in the hush money case. He told Axios that a second Trump term would follow “the evolution of any war … They only get nastier over time.” (Bannon is due to report to prison by July 1 for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee.)

Laura Loomer, a far-right activist cultivated by Trump, said Democrats should be punished with “not just jail. They should get the death penalty.”

Trump’s sycophants in Congress echo the cries for vengeance. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), auditioning to be Trump’s running mate, referred to Biden as a “demented man propped up by wicked & deranged people.” Using flame emojis, he added: “It’s time to fight fire with fire.”

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Tex.) said he wanted to “aggressively go after the president and his entire family” because “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

And Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Tex.) told Axios there will “be hell to pay” for the verdict against Trump and there “always could be” unrest.

This sort of thing has real consequences. In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee this week, Attorney General Merrick Garland spoke about “heinous threats of violence being directed at the Justice Department’s career civil servants.” But Republicans on the committee kept right on going with their claims of “weaponization of the government against U.S. citizens” and “coordinated lawfare against Trump.”

Testifying before the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic this week, Anthony Fauci, the now-retired face of the government’s pandemic response, said he still has to have full-time protection because of all the threats. “Every time someone gets up and says I’m responsible for the death of people throughout the world, the death threats go up,” he testified. This didn’t stop Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) from telling him he “should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.”

And if violence comes, as it did on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump will again say it’s not his fault. In his “Fox & Friends Weekend” interview this week, he claimed he never uttered the best-known phrase of his 2016 campaign, about Hillary Clinton. “I didn’t say, ‘Lock Her Up.’”

But he did. And nobody should be fooled about the vile provocations by the “political prisoner” this time around, either.