Poll: The U.S. Military Has An Increasingly Unfavorable View Of Trump

The Military Times has released a new poll among U.S. troops and its findings are bad news for President Trump. Conducted between July 27 and August 10, 2020 among 1,018 active-duty service members, it found that Trump has experienced a continuous decline in support from service members since his election in 2016. In the year he took office, 46.1% of service members viewed him as favorable and that slid to 37.8% by August of this year. The research found that 49.9% of respondents held a negative view of the president in 2019 and 2020. 7.9% currently view him as very unfavorable with 42% finding him generally unfavorable. Trump still does have strong support among some members of military with 24.5% holding a very favorable view of the commander-in-chief in August 2020, 13.3% finding him favorable and the remaining 12.3% holding a neutral opinion.

Compared to a similar Military Times poll conducted in 2016, Trump is heading into the November election without a healthy lead among service members. In October 2016, he held 40.5% of voting intention among military ranks, far ahead of Hillary Clinton's 20.6%. The remaining 34.3% of respondents said they would opt for a third party candidate. Fast-forward to August 2020 and Joe Biden is the most popular candidate with 41.3% of service members intending to vote for him this November compared to 37.4% who say they will vote for Trump. The share of the military looking towards a third party this time around has declined to 12.8%. The Republican Party has long considered the military a key part of its supporter base and these levels of unfavorability are unprecedented for a GOP president.

There is a terrible letter to the editor in the Washington Compost today (September 10) from a supposed Colonel.

With apologies I print it here below: I am seeking something powerful to refute this - if anybody has anything appropriate.

I am a retired Army colonel. Regardless of our branch of service, commissioned officers and senior civil servants take an oath of office that says we will “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” When I was a student at the U.S. Naval War College (NWC) in 1980, we had a course on ethics. One day we reviewed the meaning of the oaths of office that all military officers had taken, as had senior public servants from the State Department and other federal agencies attending the NWC. I asked a question: “Who are our domestic enemies?” The answer: “Domestic enemies include (1) those who undermine the free press and/or work to undermine trust in America’s democratic institutions, (2) undermine the checks and balances of our three branches or government, and (3) undermine the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.” Had we debated the ethics of today’s executive and legislative branches, we would have defined many of today’s leaders as domestic enemies who do not support and defend the Constitution. President Trump treats dictators as friends, treats our allies as enemies and undermines our intelligence community. He clearly undermines the free press and our democratic institutions, and shows contempt for congressional oversight, the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It’s either time for all governmental officials to take their oaths of office seriously, or for American voters to take their responsibilities seriously at the ballot box. David Maune, Alexandria

Freedom'sWorthIt, thank you for pinging me. I am glad you did. There is a lot to unpack here.

Col. Maune (Ret.) of Alexandria, VA asks the question "Who are our domestic enemies?" then indicts President Trump on various assertions. And right in the beginning, Mr. Maune, I indict you, as an ally of these people I describe below. You are allied with them, which means you are allied from the top ranks of the people in a number of government agencies who conspired, schemed, and sought to undermine the very processes you claim to protect, all the way down to the masked criminals in the streets assaulting police and American citizens while destroying our institutions and property. More on that when I am done.

QUESTION: WHO ARE OUR DOMESTIC ENEMIES?

YOU said: Those who undermine the free press and/or work to undermine trust in America’s democratic institution.
- Mr. Maune (I do not use the military rank deliberately) you make the assertion that there is a "free press" that exists in this country to undermine. Nothing could be further from the truth.
- The majority of today's media are nothing more that the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. They are the functional equivalent of a Soviet Pravda or TASS. If their reporting was only shoddy, incompetent, or wrong, then they could fairly be accused of such, but what they have done is far, far worse.
- The Media has been extremely unfair, biased, and openly and unashamedly hostile in its coverage of the Trump Administration (as contrasted to their bootlicking, obsequious, and fawning coverage of the eight years of the Obama Administration) If that were all they were, again, they could be fairly accused of that, but again, the totality of what they have done is far, far worse.
- Worst of all, the Media has played a major, active, contributory role in this attempt to destroy a government and its elected leader. The media has not only participated in the felony leaking of data, the coordination and collaboration, the planning, timing, and execution of these leaks to directly coordinate with and serve as a force multiplier for seditious and treasonous government officials who have betrayed their oaths of office. The political persecution of General Michael Flynn, whose boots you are not fit to lick, much less polish, is a case in point. Examples:
  - 1/10/2017: Clapper tells David Ignatius of the Washington Post to take the "kill shot" on General Flynn.
  - 1/12/2017: Ignatius publishes article in Washington Post detailing Flynn's calls with Kislyak. This was done to set the stage for the Pence interview, which 'justified' the Strzok/Pietka interview to take place.
  - 1/23/2017: Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller of the Washington Post write an article using anonymous government sources to say the FBI reviewed transcripts of the Flynn/Kislyak conversations and found nothing illicit. This was deliberately staged to put Flynn at ease for the upcoming unethical interview they were setting up as a perjury trap.
  - 1/24/2017: Strzok and Pietka show up at the White House without notifying White House Counsel (something Comey stated "they couldn't have gotten away with" if it were a different administration) Flynn rightfully viewed them as allies, and spoke freely with them (since he was likely at ease not only because he had done nothing wrong, but the strategically timed article in the press the day before was put there to do just that...put him at ease)
YOU said: Those who undermine the checks and balances of our three branches or government
- Your allies, Mr. Maune (and by extension, YOU who condone and support it) are the ones undermining the checks and balances of our three branches of government.
- From a judicial perspective, you and your Leftist allies have advocated and promoted black robed Leftists legislating from the bench and bypassing (or outright obstruction of legal policies and enforcement of all kind.) It is not President Trump who is doing this, it is your allies and their Leftist Judges who have been doing this.
- From a legislative branch perspective, you and your Leftist allies are the people who gave us Obamacare illegally by including an unconstitutional individual mandate (since declared rightfully, as unconstitutional) and circumvented the process by not allowing the public access or adequate time to evaluate the monstrosity of the ill named "Affordable Care Act". It was YOUR ally, Nancy Pelosi, who infamously and arrogantly said "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." Is that YOUR idea, Mr. Maune, of NOT "undermining the checks and balances of our three branches of government"?
YOU said: Those who undermine the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice
- This is your weakest assertion of all, since I doubt you can even give one single example. Just one. But I know you can't. Perfumed Princes like you are the ones putting our nation in the gravest danger by the corrosive damage YOU and your leftist allies had done to our military in the eight years before President Trump took office. It is people like YOU who are responsible for much of that damage, YOU directly.

YOUR INDICTMENT OF PRESIDENT TRUMP

YOU assert: Treats dictators as friends
- Spoken as a true Leftist. Well, it is clear that the Left, of which you are undoubtedly a card-carrying member, has a much greater claim to that. There are far too many examples to claim, but your ideological buddies and their ilk who wanted to make kissy-face with people whose sworn mission (Iran) is "Death to America". It was likely on YOUR very watch that we sent billions in cash on pallets to the Iranians. Cuba? Venezeuela? North Vietnam? The Soviet Union and now Russia? China, then and today? No, it is largely the Left that has been the best friend to those countries when we should have been fighting them in unison tooth and nail.
YOU assert: Treats our allies as enemies
- Oh. An ally, a true ally, such as Israel? He treats them as an enemy? The one country in that part of the world that DESERVES our support and loyalty, and YOU and your Leftist Allies have subverted them, supported their enemies, and done all in your power to vilify them on the world stage for decades. President Trump? He did what every prevaricating, pontificating bag of hot air for the last 70 years has promised to do but never done-moved the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. He has been the best friend to them, who DESERVE it the most.
- Let's see. Treats our allies like enemies. Like who? Mexico? Who for decades has encouraged their people to illegally suck at the teat of the American taxpayers, and thumbed their noses at us? Those allies? Or like our allies in Europe who routinely treat us like crap and take advantage of us and laugh at us behind our back when we compliantly keep the kick-me sign on our backs? Those allies who also live off the largess of the American taxpayer, and have done so with little gratitude since we sacrificed so much American blood and treasure to free them from tyranny? The allies who suck up to our enemies in the UN and raise their hands to vote against our interests while taking advantage of American wealth with the other hand?

YOU assert: Undermines our intelligence community
- Really. Given what has gone on since early spring of 2016 with the FBI, CIA, Obama Administration, all of whom you are almost certainly on board with, you and your "Resistance" turds, who in a just world, would be meted out appropriate punishment for sedition and treason in addition to simple lawlessness.

YOU assert: He clearly undermines the free press
- Already addressed. And just because a dimwit like you says "clearly" it means no such thing, except inside your bubble of a head.
YOU assert: He undermines democratic institutions
- Oh, like the FBI, DOJ, CIA, and Executive branch under Obama that is responsible for the most heinous scandal in American history, openly and unabashedly spying on American citizens, using every available coercion and the bureaucracy, instruments, and full power of the government to persecute them. Name one thing-ONE, that Trump has done that rises to even a hundredth of those transgressions and crimes. You can't.

YOU assert: He shows contempt for congressional oversight
- Oh. The oversight like the House Judiciary Committee and their treatment of Justice Kavanaugh. That kind of Oversight? Or the House Intelligence Committee's treatment of Attorney General William Barr? Or the Senate Intelligence Subcommittee Democrats, one who actually had a Chinese spy as a chauffeur for years? That kind of oversight? Or oversight like the Senate Intelligence Democrat staffer who texted 82 pages of the Steele Dossier to a reporter who had sex with him? That kind of oversight?
YOU assert: The Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
- Blazing idiot you are, you cannot even list one valid one. Not one. UCMJ my ass.
It is you. People like YOU who are destroying this country. You provide ideological and emotional food and sustenance to people ranging from the likes of Schiff, Pelosi, Schumer, Waters, Nadler, Sheila Jackson, Comey, Brennan, Mueller, McCabe, Strzok, Occaiso-Cortez, and Omar, through Cuomo, de Blasio, Witmer, Garcetti, Lightfoot, Whitmer, Brown, Wolfe, Northam, and Inslee, all the way down to the Antifa and BLM people rioting, destroying property, murdering and assaulting innocent people. YOU support those people. YOU own what they do, because YOU support them. You have repudiated and frittered away any goodwill you may have garnered with default respect as a member of the US Military.

You asked the question Mr. Maune: Who are our domestic enemies?

The answer is PEOPLE LIKE YOU, Mr. Maune.

YOU.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.