America’s character transplant since Swift Boat

The premise of the Swift boat attacks on John Kerry in 2004 were that he exaggerated his combat heroism and abandoned comrades to their fate. As an example of “stolen valour”, Kerry was thus unfit to be commander-in-chief. The hatchet job — brutally executed by a group of Vietnam veterans not formally tied to George W Bush’s campaign — succeeded. It would stand much less chance of working today.

I thought of Kerry’s unearned fate this week as Donald Trump posed at Arlington National Cemetery with relatives of one of the US marines killed three years ago in Joe Biden’s botched Afghan withdrawal. Though Arlington, like all US military sites, prohibits campaigns from using it as a backdrop, Trump converted the anniversary into a general election photo-op. The image of him standing in front of the graves with his trademark thumbs up was not only jarring; it was a reminder of how much American society has altered in the last two decades. Kerry was badly damaged by allegations that he had betrayed America’s sacred honour. Trump, on the other hand, pays no price for pouring frequent scorn on the very idea of serving one’s country.

This week also happened to be the anniversary of John McCain’s death. Trump in 2015 mocked the then senator McCain for having been taken prisoner in Vietnam. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said. “I like people who weren’t captured.” According to John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, and a retired Marine general, Trump would openly mock those who had died fighting for their country. Alone among allied leaders in 2018, he could not be bothered to commemorate the D-Day fallen in Normandy. Trump thinks dead or wounded soldiers are “suckers”, according to Kelly, and refused to be pictured next to amputees or people in wheelchairs because “it doesn’t look good for me”. 

I am unaware of any elected leader in the history of democracy who has spoken about their armed forces with such contempt. Yet Trump pays no price for it. Why? Some of it is to do with Trump’s skill at harvesting resentment against the non-serving elites. A veteran once told me that there were few things more annoying than people who dodged the draft saying “Thank you for your service”. When it comes to the supposedly honoured role of veterans in US society, hypocrisy is truly the compliment that vice pays to virtue.

Letting serving members of the military board flights before anyone else is another example of such virtue signalling. Most of the US military is recruited from blue collar communities, often with at least one direct family member having also served. That Trump gets away with insulting their deceased comrades is nevertheless a puzzle. I should add that Kelly felt Trump’s scorn very personally. His son, Robert Michael Kelly, also a marine, died in Afghanistan, aged 29.

Which brings me back to Afghanistan. Biden never recovered from the disastrous pullout. His approval rating dropped below 50 per cent for the first time in August 2021 and never reached that point again. The administration bears full responsibility for the chaotic nature of America’s withdrawal in which the Taliban seized control almost immediately, a result that has increasingly dire consequences today. But as I wrote at the time, the Taliban’s victory was a “whole-of-government, bipartisan, multiple-presidency operation”. Aside from Biden, Trump bears particular responsibility for Afghanistan’s reversion to the dark ages. It was he who negotiated directly with the Taliban, agreed to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners, and set the date (originally April 2021) for full US withdrawal. That he is now trying to piggyback on the deaths of 13 American soldiers whom he would otherwise regards as suckers is quite hard to stomach. 

My esteemed respondent this week is Kori Schake, director of foreign and defence policy at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. She is also one of America’s foremost scholars of civil-military relations. Kori was a senior adviser on McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. Kori, how does Trump get away with saying such things? Can you think of any precedent?

PS Join us on September 7 in London and online for the annual FT Weekend Festival, where I’ll be hosting a panel with chief foreign affairs commentator Gideon Rachman: America and the world. As a Swamp Notes reader you can take advantage of our special promo code Newsletters24. Register here.

Recommended reading

• My column this week urges Kamala Harris to do as many interviews as possible — the more exposure the better. This runs against the conventional wisdom in the Democratic world, which is acquiring nearly as much contempt for the “media” — a useless catch-all term up there with “fascism” and “elites” — as in the Maga world.

• My colleague Gideon Rachman wrote a sharp take on how Ukraine’s Zelenskyy is increasingly willing to cross America’s red lines, as well as Putin’s. Frankly, it’s hard to blame Zelenskyy. In denying Ukraine the ability to strike inside Russian territory with US weapons, America continues to tie one hand behind Ukraine’s back.

• Do also read the great Daniel Levy in the Guardian on how Biden’s Israel-Gaza strategy is still not working — and is never likely to. Few are better informed or more clear on this subject than Levy. He makes a powerful case.

Kori Schake responds

Attacks on Senator Kerry were successful because many other Vietnam veterans felt a strong sense of betrayal that he’d made his political name criticising the war. Ed, I’m less confident than you are that similar critiques would not resonate today (or that criticisms of Kerry were unfair). But those aren’t the circumstances of Governor Walz, who served 24 years and was a senior non-commissioned officer. He may have occasionally embroidered here and there, but the attacks look feeble. Trump’s exemptions and Senator Vance’s service as a one-tour media specialist hardly glisten by comparison.

Trump is trying to outrun his earlier, disrespectful comments by embracing the Abbey Gate families. The Republican convention showcased them poignantly. Republicans are capitalising on the genuine bereavement
many veterans and families experience regarding the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — about which President Biden insists he made the right decisions. That, too, feels disrespectful to many even though, as you rightly point out, President Trump set the abandonment in motion. But he wasn’t in office when people were clinging to landing gear as aircraft took off and veterans were desperately working networks to get Afghan allies to safety.

By deriding “the generals,” pardoning troops convicted of serious crimes at court martial, and demagoguing only some service as worthy, Trump is engaged in a sinister effort to break up the good order and discipline of the American military — to reach past the leadership and create insurrectionists among the ranks.

PS Despite the common misconception, it’s not true that the American military is disproportionately recruited from among the poor. Nineteen per cent of the poorest quintile of our country serve, as do 17 per cent of the richest quintile, and the majority of recruits are from middle income families. Our military comes disproportionately from nearby military bases and from military families. Nor are their politics distinguishable from other Americans of equivalent education and income. 

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And now a word from our Swampians . . .

In response to “On China, Kamala Harris is a blank slate”:
“Chinese commentators are not optimistic about a turn for the better in relations with the US, but they are more worried about Trump than about Harris. Stability and some level of communication are as much as they could wish for, and neither of these are Trumpian virtues. Harris’s silence on China could be taken as a good sign; perhaps she thinks before she speaks.” — Brantly Womack