The village of Kallstadt, Germany, where Friedrich Trump was born.
The village of Kallstadt, Germany, where Friedrich Trump was born. Thomas Lohnes / Getty Images

When President Trump rails against immigrants, he likes to say that other countries are "not sending their best" people to the United States.

Well, this shouldn't come as any surprise given Trump's embrace of "immigration hypocrite" Stephen Miller and others like him, but newly unearthed documents show that Trump's grandfather, Friedrich Trump, was in fact banished from Germany for ditching out on military service. (Aka, failing to "be best" in the eyes of the German government.)

That banishment led to the Trump clan putting down firm roots in this country, where, more than a century later, Friedrich Trump's grandson is defending US border guards who recently fired tear gas at migrants from Central America who are fleeing difficult conditions in their home countries and looking to start anew in America.

This is all just one more indication that history and political hypocrisy don't matter much at this moment.

But it's also a good opportunity to try and recall, through the maelstrom of other Trump-related developments, that Donald Trump, just like his grandfather, ducked military service.

Rather than flee this country in the face of a draft, however, Donald Trump just told the US military that he couldn't serve in the Vietnam War because of bone spurs.