Examining the Political Veteran
Why it’s not what you think it is — and why you think that way.
On a warm summer evening back in 2016, my then fiancé and I had visited a Chick-fil-A in Athens, Ga. After ordering, we’d sat at a booth to wait for our food. I was on my phone when she tapped me on the arm from across the table and said, “Look,” motioning behind me, “What’s that about?” I glanced back and saw two guys sitting at a table on the far side of the dining room. They were about my age, well-built with neatly kept beards, dark Oakleys and sturdy hiking boots. One had a black 5.11 ballcap with an empty Velcro patch and the brim folded into a tight curve low above his eyes. They both wore the extra-stiff kind of nylon belt designed for concealed carrying. I still remember all of this because this could very well have been a detailed description of what I would normally wear. I’d almost felt personally attacked until I realized why she’d brought them to my attention; across the back of the nearest one’s shirt were the words “HILLARY CLINTON KILLED MY FRIENDS.”
Now, I want to let you know that this isn’t some call-out post. I wasn’t “aghast,” I wasn’t incensed with some righteous indignation the moment I had safely left the building. I’m not going to attempt to wade through the nuances of the attack at Benghazi and the role of the Secretary of State to change your opinion. Even back then it was pretty old news. The reason why she asked me was because I would know what it meant, and why these guys in the almost comically stereotypical veteran attire would also wear the t-shirt equivalent of a political bumper sticker.
Based on my experience in the U.S. Marine Corps, I came to believe that the U.S. Military is largely apolitical. Among the junior enlisted and NCOs, this is self-correcting; if your political views become annoying to your peers then you will be corrected through what the academics call, “social pressure.” If it causes division within your section, shop, squad, or whatever then it gets corrected in other ways. Beyond that, people get shuffled around often enough that it’s unlikely for a unit to develop any semblance of a “political identity.” The diversity of the U.S. Military combined with the closeness of proximity, a love of shared misery, and the fact that cooperation can be a matter of life and death means that overt displays of ideology are often more trouble than they’re worth. Marines are told that they aren’t anything more than that: Marines.
It’s difficult to be overtly racist or radically progressive when you’ve been assured that you are equally as worthless and important as everyone else. Now, I’m not about to tell you that it’s some kind of harmonious utopia and everybody always gets along — hell no. Rather that this smoothening out of individuality, albeit necessary, translates to a general understanding that your opinion doesn’t mean much. That you will always be a small part of a bigger thing that you don’t completely understand. When you and your friends are complaining about whatever stupid thing you’re being made to do that day there’s an implicit understanding that you don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle, so what value does your opinion have? In the same way that Marines aren’t anything more than what they are, you learn that your opinion is worth exactly what it is: one opinion. Service members are taught that they don’t have all of the information, and that if they try to go off on their own ideas then they will end up ruining something they didn’t even know about.
So why are there so many politically outspoken veterans? Well, part of it is amplification bias, where a vocal minority gives the appearance of a majority. But that’s kind of a cop-out, I could say that about any movement. The truth is that veterans have a long history of being politically active in the United States. Smedley Butler, one of the most decorated Marines in our history took part in the Bonus Army march in 1932 to advocate for early payout of benefits to WWI veterans. However, this was advocacy for issues that directly impacted them. When it comes to issues outside of benefits, the traditional wisdom is that veterans tend to lean more conservative. This aligns with survey data from the Pew Research Center, which in 2019 found that about 59% of veterans identify as Republican compared to 44% of the general U.S. population. But identifying with a party is not the same as wearing an ideology on your sleeve, and the issues one would expect veterans to care about most (military spending, foreign policy, etc.) are not necessarily ones that require grandiose displays to affect change. The truth of the matter is that veterans, especially the younger ones, are particularly vulnerable to manipulation.
This is not to say in any way that we are incapable of forming our own ideas or opinions. Nor is it that veterans are more easily manipulated than any other demographic. What I am saying is that the ingredients needed for that manipulation are right out in the open. The unifying experiences of veterans often come at formative times in their lives and have a lasting impact on who they later become. Throughout my day, I find myself subconsciously criticizing myself for not keeping up the same standards or self-discipline I was expected to keep over eight years ago. Even the least motivated former Marines will still think about their time in and entertain fantasies of finding their way back from time to time, I guarantee it. You don’t see the same thing from guys who were in college fraternities during late adolescence. Like it or not — with or without deployments — it becomes a part of you, which makes it all the more difficult to step out of line with whatever the popular perception of veterans might be. Once you’re done serving and become a veteran, you’re no longer dictating the direction of military culture — you’re towing the line. You’re not an infantryman anymore. You’re like, an accountant.
In the current state of discourse, veterans get tangled up in all the other threads of identity politics. You don’t have the same apolitical shield of professionalism anymore. You don’t have the authoritative voice of someone on active duty, but you can’t truly let go of that identity. So I can’t bring myself to argue with someone who’s mad about the two former Navy SEALs who died in the embassy attack in 2012, even if the minor details tell me personally that the fault doesn’t lay with one politician or another. I would feel like a traitor. And it’s here, I feel, that the true nastiness is: the manipulation basically writes itself.
When it comes to politics, people find it most useful to operate with demographics. The factors I just laid out are mostly interchangeable with any other politically significant group of people. Find the things that they most care about, and then narrow it down to the things that they are expected to care about by their peers and work off that. Then just convince them to direct that energy towards whatever you want them to. Do it right, and they’ll police themselves of any among them who might say, “Wait a minute, what does this have to do with that?”
This article was originally published Sept. 2020 on LinkedIn
