PUBLIC SERVICE

The Greater Good of Public Service

J.D. Vance does not understand government service

Republican Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance once again pivoted to another familiar silly trope in politics. This is when so called business people candidates accuse the opposition of getting a check for government service. The trope is public servants are welfare recipients and beggars on the government dole.

He said this recently of Vice President Kamala Harris. He said he was in Afghanistan in the U.S. Marines and Harris was getting a government check. It was a crass comment.

Someone should tell J.D. that serving in the U.S. military is the government just like serving as a U.S. Senator. It is different work but it is government service. And just because you are getting shot at, or you are helping those who are being shot at, does not change this fact.

My father, uncles, and cousins served in the military. They also worked for the government honorably after their military service. When they retired from government service, they got time credit for their military service as part of their government service. My father did 28 years of service in federal and local government agencies and four (4) years in the military. He retired with 32 years of service. It is all public service.

We all know what J.D. Vance was doing. His party, the Republicans, are the anti-government party. Anti-public service. They are from the medieval school of rugged individualism even though no one gets anything on their own really. This has been the case for much of 20th and 21st centuries. It reached a fever pitch under Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich. It has done great damage to the country’s civic culture and turned millions against their own government and honorable public service.

All of this is familiar GOP politics. They always like to suggest that people who choose a career in public service are welfare recipients. They never accuse the many corporations receiving millions of dollars in corporate welfare of receiving a government check. All of the corporate subsidies are somehow not welfare? Am I missing something?

The truth is Harris was elected as Attorney General of California and Senator. She…