Donald Trump made a terrible comment about Khizr Khan’s wife, Ghazala, after their appearance at the Democratic National Convention. He wondered why Ghazala was quiet on stage, maybe unable to say anything — an obvious dig at their religion; the Khans are Muslims. They are the parents of Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq 12 years ago. It led to days of terrible news for the Trump campaign, which saw his ratings plummet nationwide, especially in key swing states. It was a media disaster that could have been avoided. Still, veterans are sticking with the Republican candidate, noting that he is fresh after 15 years. And that they don’t particularly trust Clinton’s “adventurism” abroad — or at least that’s how the son of the former Virginia senator and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Jim Webb feels about it.
“Washington Post” Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Dan Lamothe wrote that for other veterans, it’s a choice between an “asshole” and a “corrupt hawk,” with the former being the better decision. Yes, some were furious with Trump for saying he “always wanted” the Purple Heart he received from a veteran at a campaign rally, noting that there was probably an active-duty soldier with missing body parts who watched the same remark. That left a bad taste in the mouths of some of them. Still, even while furious with the Purple Heart remarks (Gibbons-Neff and Lamothe added that some did feel they were taken out of context), these veterans are unanimously behind Trump because he’s “your average Joe” (via WaPo):
“I think there’s a pretty bad taste in a lot of guys’ mouths about Iraq and what happened there,” said Jim Webb Jr., a Marine veteran, Trump supporter, son of former U.S. Sen. Jim Webb (D-Virginia) and one of McAllister’s platoon mates. “You put time and effort and blood into something, and then you see it go to waste and you think, ‘How did I spend my 20s?’”
“Their mindset is that they don’t want to see it anymore,” he said, adding that he feared a Hillary Clinton presidency would lead to “further adventurism,” given her past support for interventions in Iraq and Libya.
The two most recent national polls since the Democratic convention show Trump ahead of Clinton among military veterans — by 14 points in the Fox News poll and 11 points in the McClatchy-Marist poll. By comparison, Clinton has a 10- to 15-point lead among all registered voters in both polls. The demographics of veterans closely align with Trump’s strongest sources of support: more than 9 in 10 are male, and about 8 in 10 are white.
His fans in the military community could prove critical in November in swing states with huge military populations, including Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. In those three states, veterans made up at least 8 percent of the population in 2014, according to data collected by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
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At a recent Trump rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, just 30 minutes from the back gate of Camp Lejeune Marine Corps base, David Buzzard, a 26-year-old former Army specialist, said the Republican real estate magnate was not his “ideal candidate.”
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“I’d rather have some unfiltered jerk in my office than a sycophantic, corrupt hawk who has his own vested interests in mind, not the interests of the American people,” said Buzzard, who has the subdued outline of a scar under his left eye, subdued evidence that a roadside bomb hit his patrol in Afghanistan’s Wardak province in 2011.
Now, some of those veterans have admitted that Trump is not a rational choice for them. One said he cast his 2016 pick as one in which his heart said Trump but his head said Clinton. Another, a Marine, planned to sign up for a third-party candidate after jumping the Trump train over his comments about Mexicans and Muslims:
For Webb, a write-in or protest vote is not an option. Webb said that despite all of Trump’s supposed flaws, he believes he is the strongest candidate.
“It’s a comprehensive rethink of how we do business,” Webb said. “Whether it’s taxes or how we engage with the world, it’s very much needed.”
The choice between a jerk and a corrupt hawk probably best sums up the veterans who stick with Trump, even through his parade of absurdities that have so far only sunk his presidential ambitions. Both candidates are faint on a whole host of issues and character questions. Both are widely unpopular.
But Clinton represents only the established order and a political family that was on the brink of extinction until opportunity knocked. Trump, ironically, is in the same mold — he has given money to various politicians of different parties over the years, including Clinton. He is an insider. He admits to benefiting from being in the loop, but he has vowed to end the lure of money that has kept the rigged system going. In the battle of Mr. and Mrs. Money (and yes, the Clintons are loaded), Trump’s perceived distance from Washington has earned him stern populist points. Regardless, it doesn’t matter.
The former Democratic presidential candidate’s son is a staunch Trump supporter. Hillary Clinton is so awful that veterans are reluctant to abandon ship en masse, even after the attacks on the Gold Star family, because Clinton believes she’s in public life only for personal gain. Her support for intervention in Libya, a country we had no business getting involved in, also seems to make them incredibly nervous about her judgment in foreign affairs. Like many voters grappling with this decision, we all know what Clinton will do. It’s a roll of the dice with Trump — and that sentiment seems to win out with veterans. Given Clinton’s serial lies about her email system alone, which she said was not State Department-approved, this is one of many areas where the former first lady’s integrity and trustworthiness have been damaged. Would you trust Clinton after this and the other ethical disaster surrounding the Clinton Foundation as well? For veterans and millions of voters, the answer seems to be a resounding “no.”
