Among voters experiencing buyer’s remorse are more than a few military veterans who chose Donald Trump over Kamala Harris by a margin of 65 to 34 percent, according to some exit polls. Their shock and dismay surfaced in Washington, DC, this month during the legislative conference of the reliably conservative and hawkish Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), which has 1.4 million members.
In the run-up to that annual event, VFW national commander Al Lipphardt urged his members to “march forth” and “engage with lawmakers” to “stop the bleeding” at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Thanks to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the VA now faces disruption of its benefit claims handling, health care delivery, data security, critical medical research, and stable employment for one hundred thousand former service members.
The VFW’s resulting Capitol Hill visit on March 4 was not exactly the second coming of the militant march on Washington, in 1932, by 30,000 jobless World War 1 vets. During that confrontation, leaders of the VFW and American Legion provided political cover for Herbert Hoover, the conservative Republican president who ignored veteran unemployment (and, like Trump, championed small government). Now the VFW’s condemnation of Trump’s mass firing of vets is such a welcome break with past Veteran Service Organizations (VSO) subservience to the White House that even some VSO critics are impressed. Iraq War vet and VFW life member Kris Goldsmith calls it “historic” and “nothing short of extraordinary.”
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Auteur: Steve Early
