Congress Dishonors the Military

As the right-wing fever swamps boil over with outrage about NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem as a way to protest police brutality, an actual display of truly unpatriotic behavior has gone largely unacknowledged. The GOP-controlled legislative branch is slapping the US military across the face. And this is not the typical slap of failing to provide excellent medical and mental-health care to veterans or sitting idly as the country allows a warrior caste to take shape. This is a slap directed at two military officers in particular: Secretary of Defense James Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.

US Republican Senator Bob Corker recently said that Mattis and Kelly (and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson) are keeping the country from chaos because they are containing President Trump’s more dangerous impulses. If Sen. Corker’s assertion is correct, then the Legislature has essentially abdicated its responsibility as a co-equal branch of government to act as a check on the Executive, and has handed that monumental task over to two military officers (and one ex-CEO). That strikes me as a wildly disrespectful and shameful display of buck-passing. Haven’t these military officers given enough? They’ve dedicated their entire lives to serving the nation, and now they are expected to save the world from calamity by restraining the president, perhaps through the exercise of extraconstitutional powers, because the Legislature is afraid of angry tweets or losing a primary fight? It is a pathetic display of moral cowardice.

Republicans are supposed to be “strong on national security.” But when the threat is coming from within—a threat the GOP nurtured, endorsed and supported—the GOP expects the military to save them from their own astonishing failures of conscience. There are myriad actions the Legislature can and should take to contain Trump if he poses a risk to the country. Hoping Mattis, Kelly, and Tillerson can keep Trump from starting World War III long enough to pass tax cuts for the donor class, after which the GOP can focus on curtailing Trump’s ability to launch a nuclear strike or slow-walk us into war 140 characters at a time, is a profoundly cynical calculation—even for this borderline-nihilistic Congress.

I did not serve in the military. My father, who served in the Air Force, suggested I enlist; but I declined because, to be frank, I am a coward. But looking at this Congress—with very few exceptions—I have never felt so brave.