The Republican Party Is Not The Party Of Veterans

     Nobody in the United States is more worthy of respect than veterans. While I am fundamentally against much of war itself, veterans who have answered the call of duty and tried to return with very little help are heroes. I despair when I see veterans hold the false belief that the Republican Party is the party that fights for them, and vice-versa.

     A prime example of this is the relationship between John McCain and Donald Trump. The former, who lost a battle to the same brain cancer that killed Joe Biden's son Beau, served in the House of Representatives and the Senate from 1983 to 2018. During his 35-year congressional career, he voted his conscience with no fear of upsetting his fellow party members, even casting a critical vote that saved the Affordable Care Act. During the 2008 election, he dismissed racist jabs against Barack Obama and ran a clean campaign, which has fallen out of fashion in the modern political landscape. Before this, he fought in the Vietnam War and was captured. During the war, Trump claimed to have bone spurs, a condition common in the elderly that has curiously not reappeared (unless his "perfect bill of health from the doctor" was a lie), and he got away with his draft dodging because of his wealth. Despite this, he had the gall to claim that John McCain wasn't a war hero because he was captured, and he later said that vets with PTSD "weren't strong enough to handle it."

     One could dismiss these as the perspectives of one man, but he happens to be the highest-ranking member of the Republican Party, and I have yet to hear a conservative lawmaker condemn statements like that or Trump himself. Conservatives support increasing the military budget despite claiming their support for lowering the federal budget and taxes. The military budget makes up 40% of the national budget, yet Republicans have consistently worked to give them billions of dollars they did not need or want, as Barack Obama famously pointed out in his debate with Mitt Romney in 2012. Putting billions into sending millions of men and women overseas in itself tears apart families and leads to trauma, but refusing to offer help is unforgivable.

     The party that supports spending money sending soldiers overseas is against supporting the mental and physical health of those returning home. Their excuse: they want to be prudent about federal spending. It is a sad irony, and one that, unfortunately, many fail to see. There is no debate about it: the Republican Party is not the party of veterans.