Before taking the stage before a large crowd of red-hat bumblefucks in Cullan, Alabama, Donald Trump played a portion of George C. Scott‘s blustery speech to the troops in Franklin J. Schaffner‘s Patton (’70).
Question: What the hell does Patton’s speech (largely written by Francis Coppola in the late ’60s) have to do with anything going on right now?
1:47: “Americans love a winner, and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost, and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.”
76 years ago the U.S. and its allies won a clear, clean, unambiguous triumph over the Axis powers (Germany, Italy and Japan) at the end of World War II, but things were never quite as clear, clean and unambiguous ever again.
The Korean War (1950-1953) ended in a stalemate. The U.S. managed a strategic “win” during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, but without armed conflict. 13 years later the U.S. threw in the towel in Vietnam, starting phased withdrawals after the 1973 Paris Peace Accords and with North Vietnam taking Saigon on 4.30.75. The six-week Gulf War (January-February of ’91) was a fast win. The justified response to the 9/11 attacks resulted in an eight-year conflict in Iraq and the creation of ISIS, and a 20-year war in Afghanistan that never went anywhere, and which the U.S. abandoned under Trump and Biden and now the Taliban rules.
