The Secret Service is stocked full of people entirely different than you and me. If you and I heard gunshots and they seemed to be whizzing by or near us, our first (and only) instinct is to bend over and twist narrowly as we dive for anything “big” between us and that guy shooting the gun. That is human instinct drilled into us probably back to the days when our ancestors dove out of the way of lions or cheetahs or whatever the hell hunted them back then.

But not the Secret Service. Sure, they enter the academy probably being just like us. But because they’re better than us – or at least we writing this – they learn to overcome that instinct, instead of ducking and twisting with our hands over our head, they do the opposite. We get small, they get “big.” They stand between the shooter and the president trying to get hit if the bullet is going near the president. They stand up straighter, shoulders out, put their arms out to maybe deflect a bullet. They widen their stance to be “bigger” in the groin and chest area. They are attempting to take the bullet meant for the president and have it hit and quite possibly kill them.

Why?

For the same reason our Marines hit the beaches under gunfire. To protect this nation’s democracy. The man shoved into the presidential limousine is the guy the country voted for. The country needs him more than the agent. It is selfless service and, again, they’re simply better than those of us that doubt we ever could.

They had a Christmas party, these Secret Service agents, at the White House. They were going to let their guard down a bit (the president was in the residence, so he was protected.) They were going to celebrate the end of another year, another year in which there was no major incident threatening Trump – the guy (and his family) they swear an oath to protect.

You would think that the first person there would be the guy they protect, thanking every single one. But just like the Secret Service is better than we are, we are better than this president, who skipped the whole thing:

Two secret service sources told me Trump was MIA at their White House Christmas party on Sunday. A real bummer for the people who risk their lives to protect him.

— Tara Palmeri (@tarapalmeri) December 8, 2020

Most would expect the president to elbow bump or shake every hand, tell them how much they’re appreciated, ask about families, ask about plans, move on to the next group. All night. Until every agent has been thanked – that’s what we would do. At a minimum, we’d stand up in front of them and talk about the selflessness of these people and what it means to him. That he appreciates all of them and knows how hard they work, so he’s glad they get to have a night off and to just relax. That he had a few other things to attend to but he definitely wanted to speak to them, thank them very sincerely – and, if the president was “rich,” like this one, maybe a small card saying thank you and a $100 Amazon gift card. Little sh*t like that goes a long long way. It says, “He recognizes it’s hard. He knows that he needs us. Etc. Etc.”

Trump skips it.

That tells us everything we need to know about the men and women who protect the president and confirms all that we already knew about Trump himself. We are not surprised, just disgusted. It makes us want to go to that party and thank them and maybe hand out … $10 Starbucks cards or something from the citizens of the United States, the people not as good as them.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak