Why Donald Trump Insults the U.S. Military
Amoral autocrats are often threatened by those who embody honor, integrity, and professionalism
Today’s post, on why Donald Trump insults the military, is prompted by the behavior of Trump and his entourage at Arlington National Cemetery on August 26, 2024. To review the facts, Trump came to Arlington at the invitation of three Gold Star families, who wanted him to lay wreaths at the graves of their loved ones.
The conduct of Trump and his campaign on those hallowed grounds violated federal prohibitions against election-linked activities at military cemeteries. The photos and videos they took there also showed graves of U.S. service members whose families had not given permission for images to be circulated. Additionally, a Trump aide shoved an Arlington employee who was trying to enforce the rules, and Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung claimed that employee had initiated the aggression and was having a "mental health episode."
It seems counter-intuitive to insult the U.S. military when you are running for president and commander-in-chief. But that hasn't stopped Trump: insulting and mocking the military are among his most consistent habits.
Why does he do it? His authoritarian character, his desire to destroy democratic values and ideals, and his loyalty to autocrats who see the powerful U.S. military as an obstacle to their geopolitical aims.
Trump goes out of his way to degrade everyone around him. The aim is to "break" people as a means of controlling them, and make them dependent on him and also fearful of him. So he engages in ritual humiliation of the sycophantic GOP politicians who support him, and lets the grassroots followers who adore him know that he does not care about them. “Even if you vote and then pass away it will be worth it," he told Iowans during the January 2024 caucus, urging them to turn out for him in subzero temperatures even if they were ill.
In fact, even passing away does not guarantee that you will not be treated as a prop, as Trump grinning and performing his trademark thumbs-up gesture in front of an Arlington National Cemetery grave shows.
Mary Trump observes in her book Too Much and Never Enough that Trump's father, Fred Trump, had contempt for the military, and criticized his son, Fred Trump Jr., for joining the Air National Guard. Fred Trump Jr.'s son, Fred Trump III, gave a blunt assessment of the GOP presidential nominee's feelings for the military: "He just doesn't give a shit about them. He just doesn't. Donald believes in Donald."
The personal predilections and attitudes of Trump mirror those of authoritarians more generally, who see people as assets to exploit and plunder for their grandiose goals. Autocrats defile and ruin all ideals and values that could pose a threat to their power —professionalism, honor, and patriotism stand out here—and they denigrate those who embody those values in their professional and personal lives.
This need to discredit professionalism and honor means that members of the U.S. military, who risk their lives for our country, represent a huge threat. Cue the cascade of insults and threats against U.S. service members of every rank, from former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, on down.
In general, the higher the price members of the military have paid for their patriotism and integrity, the more Trump is threatened by them and feels compelled to depict them in a negative light.
So, service members who died in wars are apparently disparaged as "suckers" and "losers," and John McCain, who endured five years of brutal captivity as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, is not a real war hero because he was captured. "I like people who weren't captured," said Trump, who got out of the Vietnam draft when a Queens podiatrist gave him a possibly spurious diagnosis of bone spurs.
"It's not about you there. It's about these people who gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country," McCain's son, Jimmy McCain, who served for 17 years, commented about Trump's behavior at Arlington National Cemetery. The younger McCain will be voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in November. So will General Larry Ellis, a retired four-star General, who denounced Trump's behavior and observed that anyone in the U.S. military who acted similarly would be dismissed and separated from the institution.
So would any enlisted person whose behavior suggests that their true loyalty could be to another country. Here we arrive at the last reason Trump attacks the U.S. military. Such attacks must be seen in context of his attachment to America's enemies, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping chief among them.
If you are aligned for ideological, financial or other reasons with autocrats whose goal is to take down America as a superpower, then you will see the immensely powerful, professional, and apolitical U.S. military as a big obstacle.
Everything Trump evidently wants to do with and to the U.S. military may be seen as minimizing the global reach and influence of our armed forces abroad: withdraw from NATO, reorient some military resources to domestic repression, and pursue "non-intervention" —a path that would make the imperialist conquests of Russia in Eurasia and China in the Pacific far easier.
Taking his sympathies for enemy dictators into account makes Trump’s behavior at Arlington National Cemetery even more disturbing. So many of his performances are meant for foreign eyes, and Russia, China, and other countries were likely watching as Trump grinned and made the thumbs-up sign over a grave of an American soldier who fell during service abroad.
Putin and other autocrats fear our armed forces because theirs have suffered from their own corruption and chaos. For Putin and other adversaries of our country, every death of a United States service member is a welcome event. Repeatedly attacking the U.S. military, Trump not only dishonors the commitment and bravery of our service members, but suggests what side he favors in the struggle between democracy and autocracy.
I’m no expert in psychology, but as one who’s lived and observed people for nearly 80 years, I can’t help but wonder if Trump’s denigration of the military is at least in part the result of his own feelings of inadequacy. He is a year younger than I am, and so I’m well aware of all the issues surrounding military service at that time. I had to make the same decision he was faced with, and I freely admit that I was quite frightened at the thought of being in a war. At the same time I was unwilling to try to find a way out of serving, so I did what we then called ‘enlisting to avoid the draft’. The result was four years active duty in communications intelligence in which I got no closer to Vietnam than Okinawa.
I can’t know what kind of combat soldier I might have made, and given what that war did to our army, I can’t help being relieved that I never had to find out. But Trump refused to take the risk at all, and so I suspect that he, within himself just can’t afford to embrace or to applaud the kind of courage he couldn’t bring himself even to attempt.
My two cents anyway.
Something deep within Trump's warped psyche compels him to insult America's service members over and over, most notably those who have sacrificed their lives for our country or, in the case of the late John McCain, a hero who was tortured as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years.
Disrespecting Gold Star families and veterans who were maimed and disfigured in combat also is part of Trump's appalling repertoire, of course. His cowardice has a lot to do with it, including as a five-time draft dodger in wartime, as does the fact he's a brazen insurrectionist, coup conspirator and traitor.
But, to this reader, the most galling episode of all was when, at the time he refused to visit a military cemetery because of the rain, he referred to our country's war dead as "suckers" and "losers." And he did so in the presence of John F. Kelly, a former Marine four-star general and Gold Star father whose son Marine 1st Lt. Robert M. Kelly, 29, had been killed on his third tour of combat duty in Afghanistan.
We've become accustomed, even numbed, to the fact that for Trump, the unconscionable is routine. But imagine being among the members of our military and knowing that Cadet Phony Bone Spurs, a serial felon, could again be your commander in chief – instead of in a federal prison where he belongs.