The Military Stands with Biden

Serious institutions are quick to gauge the harmful effects of populism and condemn it.

Such is the case of the U.S. military, whose members prefer the Democratic presidential candidate over the Republican one.

Days before The Atlantic’s Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg’s and Bob Woodward’s revelations were made public, a poll of active military personnel showed that only 38% approved of their commander-in-chief.

That rating fell even further after it became known that Donald Trump did not want to pay tribute to the American soldiers buried in a cemetery near Paris because he does not like to be near “losers.” “If they were killed, they were losers,” he told his staff.

A poll by the Military Times, released last week, shows that Joe Biden has a four-point lead over Trump among members of the armed forces.

This is the first time in decades that military members have disapproved of a Republican president and are preparing to vote by overwhelming margins for a Democrat.

In the previous election, Trump outperformed Hillary Clinton by 2-to-1 among members of the armed forces, with 70 percent of veterans voting Republican.

Just a few days ago, 42% of servicemen and women highly disapproved of Trump, 7.9% disapproved and only 38% approved of him.

I write in the past tense because the tides have since turned within the military after a week of revelations that show a side of Trump that labels his generals “fags” and has no compassion for those who died in the line of duty, including the son of former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly.

On Memorial Day 2017, Trump and Kelly visited Arlington National Cemetery, where Robert, the former secretary’s son who died in Afghanistan, was buried. At his grave, surrounded by white crosses of soldiers killed in battle, the president said, “I don’t understand, what did they win?”

During his visit to France in 2018, Trump canceled a scheduled visit to the Aisne-Marne cemetery, where the remains of 1,800 U.S. soldiers who died in combat to stop the German advance into Paris in World War I lie. The reason for this is, in his opinion, they were “suckers” who allowed themselves to be killed.

What’s more, he asked his staff, “Who were the good guys in this war?”

Not a single one of the generals who accompanied Trump on that trip has denied what was published in The Atlantic.

Neither has John Kelly, whom the White House suspects of being the source of the report.

When former senator and Republican presidential candidate John McCain, a Vietnam war hero who was held captive for four years, passed away, Trump told an aide, “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral. He is not a war hero. I like people who were not captured.”

According to The Atlantic, Trump referred to former President George Bush Sr. as “a loser” because he was shot down by the Japanese when he was a Navy pilot in World War II. Eight others were shot down with Bush; they were captured, tortured and executed. “Losers” are what Trump calls them.

All this became widely known before the publication of the survey that showed an overwhelming majority of the military disapproves of Trump’s leadership.

The presidential order to abandon the Kurds in Syria, who heroically fought the Islamic State of Syria and ISIS, and his contempt for the U.S.’ strategic allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Far East, hit them hard.

There is more. Most members of the armed forces support, against Trump’s will, renaming military bases that carry the names of Confederate generals (who fought to keep Blacks as slaves).

To a large extent, they believe that the Confederate flag, which still flies overhead on some military bases to this day, should be banned.

Furthermore, they do not see immigration, civil disobedience or racial equality protests as threatening U.S. national security.

After the poll came the revelations about President Trump’s offensive remarks toward his generals and the service members for whom he is the commander-in-chief.

The armed forces are against him. They are with Biden, even if they are not Democratic Party sympathizers.

The armed forces’ stance is vital in this election because one of the possibilities, as the president suggested himself, is that he will not accept the election results and will use emergency powers to remain in the White House. Someone has to remove him from office.