When the Republican Presidential frontrunner in the New Hampshire primary threw one of his trademark hissy fits and blew off the voters who tuned in to in the last Republican Presidential debate, most of America was amused. We had all grown familiar, even tolerant of Donald Trump’s petulance, his narcissism, his Martin Shkreli-like arrogance. It makes for cheap entertainment and for some pitiful segment of the population (although after Iowa, a demonstrably smaller segment) his over-the top flamboyance carries with it all the hallmarks of a “true leader.”
Trump excused his absence by promoting a circus-like “benefit” for military veterans in Des Moines, Iowa, with a hall filled with fist-pumping veterans chanting “USA, USA.”. Like every political Chickenhawk who would never dream of serving in the military nor subjecting his children to such service, Trump bravely wagged his red-white-and-blue before the TV cameras to elevate his own political ambitions. But at least one 20-year Army veteran, writing for the New York Times, was not amused:
As someone who spent 20 years in the active-duty Army, I should be used to strangers bending and twisting my service to suit their needs. But I’m not. I’ve been out of uniform for nearly a decade, and I still break out in a rash when I see service members used, misused and abused for commercial or political gain.
For candidates, veterans are the most useful props imaginable. They are real-life stand-ins for any number of campaign trail virtues: patriotism, national defense, antielitism, take your pick. And they are a great way to inoculate oneself from criticism for not having served — which is the case for every major candidate in the 2016 race, not just Mr. Trump. (The former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, a long shot, is the exception.) Still, for Mr. Trump, who avoided military service in Vietnam, this was a particularly blatant and distasteful ploy for credibility.
Trump trotted out three real live veterans to exhibit themselves for his roadshow. As It happens, veterans, like most Americans, are not immune to the charms of temporary stardom, even if it comes by selling oneself to the likes of Donald Trump. Abrams quotes Nathan Webster, a Desert Storm veteran and author who observes ‘“Veterans are like anybody else in this current culture...They’re happy to play along with whatever cynical fame-grab somebody offers them.” And while some veterans’ groups agreed to take the 6 million Trump promised to charitably donate at his event, other organizations told Trump, in so many words, to piss off:
[T]he Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a group that represents about 150,000 veterans, has said no thanks. The I.A.V.A.’s founder, Paul Rieckhoff, tweeted: “We need strong policies from candidates, not to be used for political stunts.” Mr. Rieckhoff was right to refuse the candidate’s cash, and put some distance between veterans and Mr. Trump.
The Trump-a Palooza event had nothing to do with his newfound and previously undisclosed concern for veterans (Abrams notes the 6 million was 5.94 million more than Trump’s charity has ever contributed to veterans’ causes over the years) but everything to do with “sticking it” to Fox News and Megan Kelly, a contrived “controversy” with as little real substance as Trump himself. This is, after all, the same Donald Trump who a few short months ago castigated John McCain for being captured in combat, and has whined in the past that “homeless veterans” were reducing his 5th Avenue property values. For the record, here’s what he said:
“While disabled veterans should be given every opportunity to earn a living, is it fair to do so to the detriment of the city as a whole or its tax paying citizens and businesses?… Do we allow Fifth Ave., one of the world’s finest and most luxurious shopping districts, to be turned into an outdoor flea market, clogging and seriously downgrading the area?”
It is not even clear at this point how much of the money Trump “pledged” will actually go to veterans groups, or which ones. But Abrams really isn’t limiting his criticism to Trump here, but any politician, of any party, who uses veterans as props for political gain. Abrams is simply sick of it—and we should be too:
Most veterans I know don’t want to be lionized for any purpose. We were simply dedicated to doing our jobs to the best of our abilities, carrying out the orders of our superiors and coming home safe every night, not unlike responsible employees at Microsoft, City Hall or Mo’s Coffee Shop.
Except folks working two shifts at a Coffee bar, behind the deli counter at the Safeway, or at any other of the myriad jobs we dutifully fulfill every single day aren’t “charged with a special aura of bravery and honor that politicians can’t resist glomming on to.” Veterans occupy a special place in our society, many having offered their lives in defense of the values that this country is supposed to possess. The ranks of our country’s ever-changing political class, however, is almost entirely made up of people who would never dream of making that type of sacrifice. Sadly, that doesn’t deter them from exploiting the ones that have. As Abrams puts it, returning veterans in this country are too often subjected to another battle they never signed up for:
What a shame, then, that those who make it home alive sometimes find themselves fighting a new battle: to be seen as more than a prop on the American political stage.