Why Do Conservatives Who Claim To Love The Military Support Someone Who Doesn't?

How was your weekend? Nice and long? Relaxing? Did you go anywhere? Barbecue? Buy something?

I’m not happy with what we’ve turned Memorial Day into, and I think it might provide at least one answer to a puzzling question: How can people who say they support the troops support Donald Trump?

Like so many things we can think of, Memorial Day isn’t what it used to be.

Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day, established in 1868 to honor the soldiers who died in the Civil War. Friends, relatives and patriots decorated the graves of the fallen with flowers. The word used in those days was “strew”; they would strew flowers on the graves.

Of course, many still “strew” flowers on the graves of lost loved ones, and more. Some bring photos of children grown and grandchildren growing who maybe will serve in the armed forces. I knew one woman who read poetry to her husband; another would place earbuds atop her son’s gravestone and play his favorite music.

Each year, soldiers of the Army’s 3rd Regiment walk through Arlington National Cemetery and place American flags at each grave — 280,000 of them this year — in an honorary ritual known as Flags In.

For most Americans now, however, it’s different. It never seemed proper that the federal government moved Memorial Day from its original date to the last Monday in May. It just seemed to make it easier to turn a day of honor and commemoration into a long weekend for getaways (the official start of the summer driving season), backyard barbecues (the official start of the summer grilling season) and gluttonous shopping extravaganzas.

Websites last week barked out tips galore: The “53 best”; the “70 best”; the “118 best.” “The deals are so good,” shouted Wayfair, “it’s almost