Traditionally, it is easier for the military to vote for Republican candidates. The Republican Party has been strongly associated in recent decades with American leadership in the world and with a powerful and powerful defense system. In election campaigns, Democratic candidates had to constantly defend themselves against criticism that they had evaded military service (Bill Clinton), that they had increased their military achievements (John Kerry), or simply that they had no experience with the military (Barack Obama). Add to that the criticism launched from the Democratic Party’s left wing of US military operations abroad (in Iraq, Afghanistan or Central America) and it became bon ton for Republicans to present Democrats as weak on defense.
With Donald Trump, the cards are no longer that simple. Criticism of military operations in the world is now just as much coming from the Republican corner, from a heightened isolationist reflex. Trump himself is scornful and skeptical about needless interference with distant foreign countries. The president also repeatedly taunts NATO, while it is mainly the Democrats who are now openly in the breach for that alliance.
On top of that are the disrespectful statements Trump allegedly made about killed, wounded or imprisoned soldiers. In Friday’s article in The Atlantic he was alleged to have called WWI dead “losers”. The White House denies this, but reports have appeared with similar stories. In addition, Trump cannot possibly deny what he once said of Republican Senator and Vietnam veteran John McCain: “I don’t like soldiers who let themselves be captured.”
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