Donald Trump has shown a lack of respect for the military sacrifices made by hundreds of thousands of Americans. That includes calling them “losers” and “suckers” and attacking fallen soldiers’ families who do not agree with him. Between Sept. 8 and Sept. 12, Trump’s Make America Great Again Committee promoted a digital ad campaign online that seems to have been an attempt to connect supporting a Trump campaign fundraising effort with supporting our troops.
But Politico reports that the Trump campaign, like everything Trump-related, is both nefarious and incompetent—and incompetent when they are being nefarious. According to the report, the ad showing three silhouetted soldiers walking as three fighter jets fly behind them, with big drop-out letters reading “SUPPORT OUR TROOPS,” followed by a “Show Your Support” fundraising link button, is not as American as it seems.
Pierre Sprey, a man who helped design planes for the U.S. military, told the outlet that the plane you see directly overhead is “definitely a MiG-29.” Why is this problematic? MiG-29s are not U.S. military jets. They are famous Russian jets developed in the 1970s. They were the inspiration for the fictional fighter jets that Tom Cruise was up against in the Tony Scott movie Top Gun.
Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow, confirmed that the planes are Russian MiG-29s, and also said the soldier on the far right in the ad carries an AK-74 assault rifle.
The AK-47 is a Russian-made assault weapon. According to the news outlet, all of this mess is simply a matter of “inattention” to detail. Eh... it’s something like that. It’s inattention to reality and a true cynicism about the world and the military and our country’s supposed sense of democracy and freedom. That’s what it is.
Hopefully the polling showing Trump’s dwindling support among the military will continue to illuminate that people like Trump do not have them or their families’ best interests in mind.