Military Service, Partisan Smears and the Parody of Patriotism

BY JOE CONASON

The Trump campaign’s attack on the military record of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — who served honorably as a volunteer in the National Guard for 24 years — invites us to remember the military service of former President Donald J. Trump.

Except there isn’t anything to remember concerning Trump’s military service since he never served. Neither did his two older sons, nor his father, Fred, nor his grandfather Friedrich Trump, who originally came to this country to avoid the draft in his native Germany and was barred from returning there as a penalty for evading military service. It is a fact that Donald and his offspring grew up in the United States, with all the benefits thus accrued, as a direct result of old Friedrich’s draft dodging.

That spotty history won’t discourage Trump and his minions from their ongoing assault on Walz — the latest cycle in a long Republican history of denigrating the service of political opponents, nearly always with a barrage of falsehood. The practice is known as “swiftboating,” a term that arose from the 2004 propaganda blitz of lies about Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s courageous, highly decorated Vietnam service.

One of the principal authors of that slimy chapter, GOP operative Chris LaCivita, is now running the Trump campaign’s mugging of Walz. These are the same kind of “patriots” who once mocked Sen. Max Cleland, the late Georgia Democrat who lost three limbs in Vietnam and earned the Bronze and Silver stars — and who smirked when Trump derided the POW ordeal of the late Sen. John McCain.

Trump may think he can smear Walz without consequence by hiding behind his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, who enlisted in the Marines and served, however briefly, in Iraq. Ever the useful tool, Vance has aggressively insulted Walz over a few minor footnotes to the Minnesota governor’s service, including whether he carried an assault weapon “in war”; when he chose to retire from the Guard; and what rank he could legitimately claim upon retirement.

None of this amounts to a substantial criticism of Walz or his service — which is why Republican repetition of these same tired charges every time he stands for office has failed to wound him. (The claims against Walz didn’t gain any credibility when Minnesota media revealed that two former National Guard officers had been paid by Republicans to make them.)

As for Vance, the Ohio senator is surely one tough weenie. He deserves thanks for his service. But his record doesn’t suggest any zeal for actual battle. During four years in the Marine Corps, he spent six months in Iraq as a “combat correspondent,” meaning he interviewed actual combatants and wrote up their stories for service publications. As he acknowledged in his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” “I was lucky to escape any real fighting.”

Trump was lucky too, in a different way: His wealthy father arranged for young Donald to escape the Vietnam draft, just as George Herbert Walker Bush did for his son George W., who obtained a safe stateside berth in the Texas Air National Guard.

When Trump could no longer rely on student deferments, he abruptly developed a medical condition that made him ineligible for service: bone spurs in one or both of his feet. (He no longer recalls which foot allegedly suffered from this painful ailment.) As a lifelong athlete who has often boasted of his sporting prowess, Trump was no doubt anguished by this sudden crippling condition.

Or was he? As reporters later discovered when he ran for president, both podiatrists who attested to those disqualifying bone spurs had leased office space from the Trump Organization. By 2016, when questions emerged, those doctors had passed away and their records were no longer available. But the daughters of one of them told The New York Times that their entire family knew her father had delivered Donald’s diagnosis as “a favor” to landlord Fred — and that he had been rewarded with exceptional service as a Trump tenant.

Isn’t that special? No wonder Trump feels obliged to hug the flag wherever he goes.

Such is the parody of patriotism we have come to expect from the Republican Party, especially under Trump. Actual service to the nation — a calling to which men like Walz have devoted their entire lives as schoolteachers, Guard officers and public servants — is dismissed and scorned for partisan gain. Grifters and scammers, who have spent a lifetime serving only themselves, are somehow elevated to cult status.

In this election, those con artists are testing the gullibility of voters yet again. Their success would be America’s failure.

Joe Conason is the editor in chief of NationalMemo.com and author of several books, including (with Gene Lyons) “The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton” (St. Martin’s Press, 2000). Conason co-produced a 2004 documentary film, “The Hunting of the President,” based on the book. His new book is “The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism,” with a foreword by George T. Conway III.

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2024

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