Unpopular President Donald Trump has done very little for most Americans. In fact, his biggest accomplishments are paying lip service to white supremacists and stoking the fears of frightened bigots everywhere. Of all the groups of people who have been let down by our current administration and the Republican Party, military families and active service members rank high. Trump’s single most active military policy maneuver was to try and ban transgender Americans from serving in our country’s armed forces.
A new poll conducted by the Military Times reports that Trump’s general crappiness in comparison to former vice president Joe Biden is no comparison at all. According to the Times, “active-duty troops’” support of Trump has pretty steadily diminished over the past four years. As of late July and early August, “nearly half of respondents (49.9 percent) had an unfavorable view of the president, compared to about 38 percent who had a favorable view.” Of those surveyed, 42% said they “strongly” disapprove of Trump’s entire time in office.
According to the poll, Joe Biden would receive 41% of their votes if they were casting them today, while only 37% said they would vote to reelect Trump. The breakdown in favorability is even more extreme for Trump as only 24.5% of respondents had a “very favorable” view of Trump, while 42% had a “very unfavorable” view. And there is a split among officers and enlisted military, with more than 59% of officers holding a poor view of Trump.
Among enlisted respondents, 47 percent said they have an unfavorable view, and nearly 39 percent a favorable view. Enlisted views of Trump’s performance in office have consistently been more favorable than those of officers in the poll over the last four years.
Why might this be? Could it be because the Trump administration has tried to cover up exposing military families to contaminated water at 126 bases? Maybe. Could it be all his dumb deep state nonsense? Possibly. Maybe it’s his complete inaction in the face of Russia paying bounties for American service people’s heads in Afghanistan? It could also be Trump and the Republican Party’s attempts at taking food out of the mouths of military families. Who’s to say?
Trump’s biggest lie, understood by anyone receiving an actual paycheck from our country for serving in the military, is that he and he alone gave them their first raise in 10 years. This, of course, was not true, and even conservative military folks know that the “raise” they got was a lot less than what Democratic officials were trying to pass.
