Why Is Military Service A Positive For Politicians?

by Boobie

Class Is Boring
Jul 27, 2017 · 5 min read

Over the last couple days, there’s been some pretty venemous rhetoric surrounding Arizona senator and 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Yesterday, McCain rushed back across the country to Washington, D.C. from brain cancer treatment to vote in favor of a motion to proceed on a bill to repeal Obamacare. After this, he delivered a grandstanding speech which reporters gobbled wholesale. Meanwhile, those who view the repeal of the ACA as violence against people who can’t afford health insurance for pre-existing conditions or “voluntary” surgeries like gender re-assignment publicly wished that the cancer would hurry up and attacked him as a hypocrite with a long history of “gritting his teeth” and then voting directly along the Republican party line.

Any time this sort of inflammatory language is being used by wide swaths of the internet, the civil centrists will come out to defend the dignity of their adversary. In the case of McCain, this generally came in the form of pointing out that he is a war hero, a former Vietnam POW whose bravery in service to America is almost certainly unmatched by 99% of his detractors. Putting aside the divise nature of the Vietnam War, the main question about this particular defense is: so what?

From the very beginning of America, military figures have parlayed their battlefield success into political power. George Washington became America’s first hero by leading the colonial army in the Revolutionary War; a decade later, he was the country’s first president. Ulysses S. Grant parlayed his success as general of the Union Army in the Civil War into the presidency as well. Dwight D. Eisenhower went from Supreme Allied commander in World War II to the presidency with no other political experience. John F. Kennedy played up the handsome war hero angle rather than the father-made-his-money-as-a-prohibition-bootlegger angle on his way up the political ladder. McCain’s success as a politician is similarly inextricable from his military service. Why is that, though?

Being a good soldier and being a good politican are completely unrelated as skills. One of the best jokes in Forrest Gump is that Forrest was the perfect soldier because he was stupid, brave, and followed orders. Politicans should ideally only share the bravery, and it’s a completely different type of bravery (doing what you think is right even if it might not be popular, which is the line politicians give when they talk about their own bravery, is not quite the same as going on a mission where you could be maimed or die). Forrest rescuing Lt. Dan didn’t lead to him becoming Greenbow, AL. There’s something to be said for having the ability to move up in a bureaucracy, but that’s not the reason people like voting for veterans (although Democrats probably think it is), because just reading that sentence is more effective than NyQuil.

The idea that military service equals good politician props up the idea that anyone who joins the military is doing so out of the ideological imperative to defend the country’s freedom. Jointing the military is often a career or a means to an education rather than pure-hearted patriotic service; in wars with a draft, it was often none of the above. These people often still put their lives in danger, of course, but again, why does that qualify them to vote on a budget? Plus, when a vet is running for office (or in McCain’s case, being defended once in office), it’s conveniently always about that pure patriotic duty, even though the United States hasn’t fought a archetypically defensive war since World War II.

If there’s no overlap in skill that would logically make a veteran a better senator or congressman than anyone else, and there’s not necessarily then the entire reason why it gets pushed in elections is propoganda. Americans love their military, to the point that any classic American symbolism like the flag or the national anthem is intrisically tied to soldiers in people’s mind and any non-deferential behavior towards it is immediately attacked as disrespectful to the troops. It makes sense, then, that using military service as a selling point for a candidate is a useful leg up. In races where people aren’t necessarily doing as much research or operating with as much knowledge as they are during a big presidntial election, it might be all a candidate needs to get a foot in the door and start climbing that ladder.

Another more minor commercial advantage to the veteran candidate is that so many English language metaphors are combat-based. A huge percentage of traditionally American sporting phrases, for example, draw on military jargon: baseball players sit in the dugout and hit long bombs; football linemen battle in the trenches while their quarterbacks trying to unleash an aerial assault on the defense. This transfers pretty seamlessly to campaigning, where the men and women who fought for America will now fight for their constituency.

Again, all that is just window dressing, a means to getting elected rather than an indication a candidate of doing a good job after they do. Combat experience might serve useful in the day-to-day operation of the presidency, as the president holds the title of “Commander In Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.” Even then, it’s a stretch to use that title as a reason to elect anyone below the position of president, and unless every non-military president in American history was woefully unfit for the job, the title must not be all that vital a role.

Of course, military service is not completely without advantages for an elected official’s performance: even if the jobs don’t relate, there’s something to be said for voting for someone who has actually seen the human cost of war up close and who might not take entering a war as lightly as your average old white lawyer or businessman. The sales tactics that get veterans elected can also be used to rally a base, which is hugely important, and even if that’s not ideal, it’s an undeniable advantage.

To connect this idea to sports again: American professional sports teams have, in the last decade or so, moved away from former players in front office positions, in favor of people who are more statistically savvy and familiar with the nitty-gritty mechanisms of team building. Teams have realized that the skills that make someone good at playing a sport don’t overlap with the ones that make someone good at managing a team, and they’ve adjusted their decision making accordingly. The same should be done for politicians.

This is not to say that veterans shouldn’t be considered at all for political positions, the same way former players shouldn’t be entirely written off for front office positions in sports (Danny Ainge and Pat Riley played in the NBA, and they’ve done quite well for themselves in management). Obviously, it would be foolish to completely write off any demographic; rather, the weight given to a lot of factors in elections is due for a recalibration that might allow better candidates rather than better storylines to get elected.

Class Is Boring

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Blog formerly at classisboring.tumblr.com

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