I don't expect very much of President Donald Trump and generally, I'm not disappointed. In so many ways that we have come to take for granted, he is a small man, the antithesis of what we mean by "Presidential." Tall in stature, small in character. That's who we heard from this year on Memorial Day.

His message was garbage, partisan and mean-spirited, all about him, as always.

This is the message in full:

"Happy Memorial Day to all, including the Dumocrats, who disrespect our Military and all of the tremendous success that it has had over the last year. God Bless those that have made the ultimate sacrifice. I love you all! President DONALD J. TRUMP"

In a follow-up post, he wrote: "The Dumocrats have BAD POLICY and BAD CANDIDATES. Other than that, they are doing quite well! President DJT"

DUMOCRATS?

What is the point of calling out the Democrats as dumb on Memorial Day?

Which of these so-called "Dumocrats" have shown disrespect for our Military and their bravery over the last year? Is this supposed to be yet another attack on Senator Mark Kelly, the astronaut and combat veteran who, with other veterans in Congress, made a video that drove Trump crazy, advising members of the military and intelligence communities not to obey unlawful orders?

Memorial Day is not a day for partisan divides. It is a day, or at least it should be, when we come together as a country to honor the memories of those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Who is Donald Trump to pollute those commemorations with the taint of partisan politics?

This country is more divided now than it has been since the Vietnam War tore us apart. I had thought we'd learned the lesson that a president should not go to war without the bipartisan support of the American people. Donald Trump doesn't believe in bipartisanship, and he's frankly not even interested in Democratic support. Certainly, name-calling is not the way to get it.

I don't know how many of the 13 men and women in the military who have given their lives in this war were Democrats and how many were Republicans. We don't label recruits that way, nor do we sort the war dead by party. Party doesn't matter. We are all Americans. Patriotism and love of country are what unite us, on Memorial Day of all days. All except the current president.

Of course, we have disagreements within our political parties and between our political parties. We always have. But the tenor of our divisions has never been so poisonous. It is a threat to families and communities. It makes it difficult to hold the kinds of civil conversations that a functioning democracy depends upon. Donald Trump doesn't believe in building bridges to the other side; he'd rather blow them up.

This is not something new for him, or unique to this Memorial Day. As reported by Newsweek, on Memorial Day last year, he attacked federal judges as "monsters" who want the United States "to go to hell" in an all-caps Memorial Day post. Trump wished a "happy Memorial Day to all," including the "scum that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country through warped radical Left minds, who allowed 21,000,000 people to illegally enter our country, many of them being criminals and the mentally insane, through an open border."

Federal judges under this administration have faced more threats to their personal safety than at any time at least since the Civil Rights days, when the courts and the Administration backed the judges and didn't call them "scum."

"On Memorial Day," former President Barack Obama wrote this week, "we pay tribute to the brave men and women in uniform who gave their lives for this country that we love. It is a debt we can never fully repay, but we must never stop trying. I'll always be grateful to our fallen heroes and their families, whose sacrifice reminds us of what it means to live for something greater than ourselves."

Is that so hard? Does Donald J. Trump even have any idea of what it means to live for something greater than ourselves? Judging from his Memorial Day message, I doubt it.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Aaron Burden at Unsplash