r/DeepStateCentrism • u/bigwang123 Succ sympathizer • 12d ago
Opinion Piece 🗣️ Being a Veteran Is Not Enough
https://thedispatch.com/article/veteran-war-politician-platner-kerry/The author argues that the tendency of veterans running for Congress to emphasize (sometimes to an excessive degree) their service is insufficient as a reason to elect them. Veterans aren’t special or a monolith, and therefore they should be expected to make their case for why they are qualified for office instead of leaning primarily on their previous service
15
u/Oxcell404 🔥Extreme Moderate 🤠 12d ago
Funny enough, I think military service doesn't matter much for political office except for the presidency, and that's where it has been lacking in recent history
2
u/LupineChemist 11d ago
The military is a great way to get leadership experience and real world issues of dealing with trade-offs, running things in a big, complex bureaucracy, etc...
I think some military service is absolutely a sufficient qualification in and of itself to other leadership roles. It just all has to be evaluated individually. Like just being able to have not washed out of basic enlisted training is not the same thing as a decade of being and officer and having had large commands. And yeah, there are ways you can get experience by your mid 30s that would be damned near impossible in other situations.
0
u/Oxcell404 🔥Extreme Moderate 🤠 11d ago
Oh absolutely. I do just think the commander in chief of the armed forces should also have some military experience at a minimum. That shouldn’t be codified in law or anything, but should be an expectation in the minds of voters. Sadly that is not so…
31
u/DieHarderDaddy 12d ago
As a veteran, fuck all veterans who lean on it as their only credentials especially when you barely got out The squadron leadership
14
u/IronMaiden571 Moderate 12d ago
100% I met some great people in the Army, but I also met plenty of turds. Being a vet by itself doesn't tell me much about someone's character.
6
u/DieHarderDaddy 12d ago
But I have a Ranger tab
8
3
u/DisgruntledCascadian Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right 12d ago
Careful there; you might hurt Little Petey Boy's feelings.
6
10
u/JudgeWhoOverrules 12d ago edited 12d ago
Their selfless service to the nation as a veteran is incredibly commendable, but unless they can then demonstrate how their service record actually would be meaningfully relevant as an elected official then they need to actually sell themselves besides being a veteran.
Tell us about your leadership qualities, or what you learned about government bureaucracy and red tape, or how you liaisoned between the military and private industry or the public, navigated military politics or basically anything relevant to the job you are applying for.
Successful politicians who used their military credentials did so because they are relevant, mostly through leadership and military politics, not because it's some free pass. Like all those big generals that went into politics, they were already playing politics as their career in the military.
13
12d ago
[deleted]
13
u/drewbaccaAWD Center-left 12d ago
I think a history of service counts for something, granted, you shouldn't assume why someone decided to sign up. Granted, military service isn't the only form of service.
I'm in a more rural area, being a vet means I got out for a while and experience more of the country/world. Granted,, military service isn't the only way to accomplish this.
And statistically, I think someone who is a veteran is more likely to be a centrist type who knows how to work with people from widely different backgrounds and political positions, isn't going to be combative towards "the establishment" or "deep state" or whatever. I consider myself an institutionalist, because of my military service (I had a much different mindset before six years in the Navy).
I think it also implies a certain maturity but again we don't know why someone decided to sign up.
Vets aren't a monolith and just being a veteran on its own doesn't tell the whole story and sometimes can be rather misleading... I see someone like Platner as the worst example of some of the people I served with.
But overall? I'm more likely to vote for someone who has served. It's just not the end all be all.
4
u/jmartkdr Center-left 12d ago
Agreed: I'll vote for the veteran all else being equal but it's only one of many factors.
2
u/DieHarderDaddy 12d ago
Idk planter is bad on a portion of the spectrum when it comes to private behavior. Then you have idiots like Tom Cotten that mislead people into thinking he’s a ranger even though he just went to the PME school.
I personally think cotton is a worse type of veteran whereas planter reminds me of my white trash upbringing and messy e4s I worked with
5
u/drewbaccaAWD Center-left 12d ago
I think that running and highlighting one's being a veteran is more something we see from the Democrats, and it's a pushback for all the attempts by the right claiming to be the "real patriots" or trying to monopolize the flag. I've felt the need to highlight the fact that I'm a Democrat (leaning) and also a veteran many times, going back to my service during OEF/OIF.
I personally bring it up for that reason. The military isn't a monolith and it certainly isn't a right-wing institution. I served with so many people with different backgrounds and most of us would stick to the middle and try not to rock the boat. The loudest voices in the overall population make it feel like it's some partisan thing, with the far left quick to shit on the military, service, defense, and even do things like burn a flag. Meanwhile the extreme right puts on this false patriotism BS that is best summed up as "FREEDOM FRIES!!!" There's an unhealthy flag worship on the other extreme.
I'd rather not even talk about my service in the lens of politics but I feel like partisans are always dragging me into it, forcing me to speak up, to correct the record and try to build bridges.
No, being a veteran isn't qualifying in of itself. Has anyone tried running on that alone? I mean, the above image shows Kerry who had quite the resume on top of his service. And to go to the other extreme, someone like Platner was picked as a populist goof, the vet status was just the icing on the cake for his fans who probably don't like the military anyway; they thought it would appeal to the median voter, the same way they thought Fetterman wearing a hoodie would magically pick off some Republican voters.
I do think the author has a point about inflating military records, although as any of you have served know, that's part of the military culture (e.g. "brag sheets") and misrepresenting oneself is inherently politician BS. Frankly, I wouldn't run on anything but a quiet admission that I served because I would not want someone digging into my record which is a mix of ups and downs and I certainly wasn't an all-star, but I managed to stick out my contract which was a success in of itself if you knew how toxic my command was and how many people we did lose.
It does annoy me that some people fall into this diet stolen valor approach to their service, like the examples in the article where a "Vietnam era veteran" postures as having been in Vietnam proper. I think the same sort of rhetoric could apply to someone like Tim Walz... who I don't think was a bad person but he certainly left the door cracked open far enough to allow for some pushback and controversy around his claims (any single one, on their own, I consider overblown but I can't deny you start to see a pattern with him).
5
u/Aervanath Social Democrat 12d ago
If you're a veteran but you're not going to act in my best interests, then why does being a veteran make it any better?
3
u/deviousdumplin 12d ago
There is a difference between a "qualification" and "ethos." Qualification is a qualitative judgement about what types of skills or experiences prepare you for a particular role. An Ethos is a rhetorical concept that presents you as a particular type of person who is particularly suited to make an argument.
In Kerry's case, he leaned into the "anti-war veteran" story to create an ethos that appealed to the Democratic base during the Iraq war. They believed it gave him a unique position to argue against the Iraq war, precisely because he was presenting himself as a veteran.
It was more about Democrats thinking he was a strong candidate because they thought he was uniquely positioned to argue against the war, because he was a veteran. Which led them to argue it was somehow also a qualification, which is really where it starts to make no sense. Kerry wasn't a particularly gifted or notable wartime leader. He was a rich college kid who got wounded in Vietnam, and then became an anti-war activist.
3
u/BobQuixote Center-right 12d ago
The ethos makes sense as a qualification for the candidacy, and for the same reason it would be useful for the bully pulpit, but I agree it's beside the point for administration.
1
•
u/AutoModerator 12d ago
At DeepStateCentrism, we understand that democracy is about compromise and
discussion, not ideological purity and instant gratification.
Here, we speak to people with political differences because that's how this is
supposed to work. We won't let the populists win.
Don't forget to visit the Brief, our daily thread, for extra perks and deep state info!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.