Here’s an interesting tweet from CBS News, the copy of which I am going to reproduce here before letting you watch the accompanying video: “Pres. Trump, though standing, does not sing “God Bless America” word-for-word, nodding along to melody as military chorus sings ‘through the night with the light from above.’” OK, please go ahead and enjoy the video:
Now, “does not sing ‘God Bless America’ word-for-word” is certainly one way to accurately describe what you are watching there. Another way to describe it, and just hear me out on this, is that President Donald Trump is such a shameless dipshit that he called the Philadelphia Eagles—a football team that never even protested the national anthem this regular season—un-Americans who did not support the troops and this country because they have protested racial inequality, disinvited them from a trip the White House [comes up for air] and instead planned a full-on patriotism display where assorted folks would stand and “proudly play the national anthem,” presumably with hand on heart, and could not even be bother to make sure he knew all the words to one of the songs he was making everyone stand up and sing.
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Now, I’m not sure that would fit the 280 character limit, but do not sit there and tell me that that isn’t exactly what just happened. All you need to do is watch from about 0:07-0:10 and you know he has absolutely no idea what the words are—which, by the way are “stand beside her, and guide her.” They are literally the third and fourth lines of the song.
Listen, we’ve all been there, trying to fake our way through a verse or two in order to get our legs back under us when we get to the chorus. Just usually, we’re in our cars all by ourselves (or the shower, YMMV) and not on national television hours after we just threw a huge fucking tantrum about how important performative acts of patriotism are.
