Jason Kander: Why do the troops support President Trump, you ask? They don’t

“Why are the troops for President Donald Trump?”

People are constantly asking me this question, and for four years, I’ve been answering it the same way: “The military leans slightly toward the conservative side, but so would any American workplace in which only 1 in 5 employees is a woman and the workforce is drawn heavily from the South and Midwest.”

But from now on, I can just say, “They don’t,” because the latest Military Times poll has former Vice President Joe Biden leading Trump among military voters, and it’s not difficult to brainstorm a litany of possible reasons why.

Trump refuses to defend America from Russian attacks on our democracy, or to confront Russian President Vladimir Putin about the price he has placed on the heads of American service members. Biden has a record of standing up to America’s adversaries and enemies, as well as marshaling the help and support of our allies.

Biden has reflected honestly on his initial support of the Iraq War, calling it a mistake, and demonstrating that he’s learned from it. Trump, on the other hand, supported the war until it turned out to be a disaster, at which time he pretended to have been against it all along. Having learned nothing from Iraq, Trump took us to the brink of all-out war with Iran simply because he wanted to appear tough.

As U.S. senator, Biden worked tirelessly to secure funding for heavily armored vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan and state-of-the art prostheses at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Trump recently ordered the military to assist in using chemical agents on peaceful protesters so that he could take a picture in front of a church while holding an upside-down Bible.

Trump uses the military as a prop in parades and as a captive audience for overtly political speeches. When not in front of a camera, he reportedly refers to America’s war dead as “suckers” and “losers.” Biden once showed me a card he carries in his pocket with updated military casualty numbers.

Trump has lied about how many visits he has made to welcome home fallen service members at Dover Air Force Base. He launched political attacks on Gold Star parents and claimed our military no longer fights to win.

In March, when Dr. Jill Biden joined me on a tour of Veterans Community Project here in Kansas City, she correctly referred to the Bidens as a military family, a reference to the late Beau Biden’s deployment to Iraq with the U.S. Army. That really means something, by the way. Not since the Eisenhowers has America had a first family who knows what it’s like to hug a child one final time before they head off to war.

Trump once characterized combat veterans not stricken with post-traumatic stress as “strong” and those who do suffer from post-traumatic stress as the ones who “can’t handle it.” When I went public in 2018 with my own PTS struggle, Biden immediately issued a public statement calling my decision “brave” — but he also called and texted me multiple times that day.

This all brings me to the real reason our troops prefer Biden to Trump, because, in reality, it’s much simpler than the indictment I’ve laid out above. In the military, leadership is more than just a buzzword. It’s at the foundation of everything we do, which is why that same Military Times poll reported roughly 3 out of every 5 military officers to have a “poor view” of the president.

Our troops — no matter how deep their ancestral Republican roots may be back home — know bad leadership when they see it, and they see it plainly in Donald Trump. In Joe Biden, they see a steady leader who has confronted challenges in his life more difficult than elections, and — even if they don’t always agree with his politics — that’s something they can respect.

So no, the military doesn’t support Trump’s campaign. The troops are hoping we relieve their commander in chief and give them one worth following.

Jason Kander is a veteran of the Afghanistan War and former Missouri Secretary of State. He hosts the weekly political podcast Majority54.

This story was originally published September 6, 2020 at 5:00 AM.