In a stunning political realignment that has seen former Democrat Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and now former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard endorse former President Donald Trump, the 2024 election has taken a new shape — the war lobby establishment against Trump’s coalition of conservatives, Independents, and outsiders.
Here’s how it’s taking shape and how Montana’s major veteran population and the Senate contest between Tim Sheehy and Jon Tester fit into the picture.
National Realignment
In a historic speech last week in Phoenix announcing his support for Trump, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. excoriated Democrats as “the party of war, censorship, and corruption,” before taking the stage with Trump at a rally in Glendale, Arizona.
Within days, veteran and former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii endorsed Trump in a speech at Arlington National Cemetery on the anniversary of the Abbey Gate attack in Kabul.
I was a Democrat for over 20 years. Today, I endorsed Donald Trump for President. WATCH to hear why: pic.twitter.com/lwA8FYFx8h
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) August 26, 2024
“I know that President Trump understands the grave responsibility that a President and Commander in Chief bears for every single one of our lives. Whether you’re a soldier, you’re an airman, marine, sailor, or a coastie, he keeps us in his heart in the decisions that he makes,” Gabbard said at Arlington.
"We saw this through his first term in the presidency, when he not only didn’t start any new wars, he took action to de-escalate and prevent wars. He exercised the courage we expect from our commander in chief in exhausting all measures of diplomacy.”
A Coalition Against Forever-Wars and The Nuclear Brink
Gabbard inveighed against the Biden-Harris administration fomenting wars around the globe. “This administration has us facing multiple wars on multiple fronts in regions around the world and closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before,” she said.
She tore into Harris’ role in America’s rising “anti-freedom culture.”
“We cannot be prosperous unless we are at peace, and we cannot live free as long as we have a government that is retaliating against its political opponents and undermining our civil liberties, weaponizing our institutions against those they deem a threat,” Gabbard said. “I’ve been their most recent target, added to a secret terror watch list after exposing the dangers we face if Kamala Harris is elected.”
A Unity Government
Gabbard called on patriotic Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who “cherish peace and freedom” to join Trump’s unifying coalition with her and with Kennedy.
Gabbard is herself a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves and has seen deployments in the Middle East and Africa.
Tulsi Gabbard's endorsement of Trump gains extra weight from her military service. As a former Army National Guard officer who reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, her support could resonate strongly with veterans and active-duty personnel. 3/6 pic.twitter.com/k3iUNk4b1c
— Marcos Cerutti (@OMarcosCerutti) August 26, 2024
The realignment is not just on Trump’s side. Recent days have also seen more than 200 former Bush, McCain, and Romney staffers, functionaries in and supporters of America’s bitterly long and costly decades in Iraq and Afghanistan, endorse Kamala Harris.
The gulf between Trump’s popular, pared-down MAGA agenda of restricting immigration, onshoring American manufacturing, and ending foreign wars and establishment neoconservatives and neoliberals has further widened.
I predicted more Dems might abandon ship earlier. Tonight, Zuckerberg expressed regrets. The crack widens. GOP's unity focus seems irreversible, the only path to strengthen America. More defections may follow. The country's direction Republicans adopted has no turning back. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/TC64sMr48R
— Marcos Cerutti (@OMarcosCerutti) August 27, 2024
Meanwhile, the U.S. is in the grip of an ongoing military recruitment crisis, struggling to attract new recruits across branches and missing benchmarks by thousands of soldiers.
Critics have pointed out an undue and embarassing emphasis on DEI over and against military-readiness. The turmoil has also seen soldiers booted from military ranks amidst COVID vaccine mandates. Add to that the United States' disastrous exit after twenty years in Afghanistan, leaving the Taliban with one of the largest attack helicopter fleets in the world, and the question remains why capable young recruits would want to sign up. The U.S. this year will field its smallest military since 1940.
NEW – U.S. Military Sees Record Breaking Low Recruitment Numbers
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) December 31, 2023
"The Army is about to have its lowest number since 1940...They can't find people who are capable of serving and want to serve...The people who are still willing to serve...are demoralized because they spend more… pic.twitter.com/rD6MDzBRHS
Will Montana’s outsized share of veterans weigh in on the direction of the country?
Montana Stakes
Montana’s share of military veterans represents 8.9% of the state’s population. The Treasure State trails only Wyoming, Maine, Alaska, and Virginia in share of veterans per capita.
Source: US Census Bureau and Axios.
Trump is unlikely to lose his grip on Montana in the November general election, having carried the state by double-digit margins in 2016 and 2020. Eyes are instead trained on Montana’s Senate contest between Republican Tim Sheehy and incumbent Democrat Jon Tester.
Tester’s vulnerability puts Democrats’ slim Senate majority, crucial in upholding the Biden-Harris agenda the past four years, in jeopardy. Most polls show Sheehy defeating Tester by a comfortable, if not wide, margin.
Could the national realignment around Trump’s unity coalition shape down-ballot contests like Montana’s Senate race?
3 years ago, we lost 13 American warriors at Abbey Gate. Not to mention the sacrifice of my family and closest friends was wiped away by the disgraceful Biden-Harris Afghanistan withdrawal.
— Tim Sheehy (@SheehyforMT) August 26, 2024
I’m running for US Senate because we need leaders who understand service and sacrifice. pic.twitter.com/JvjpgdV7T4
Sheehy, a former US Navy SEAL, has said the United States’ disastrous exit from Afghanistan that left Americans behind and Afghani allies to fall to their deaths off U.S. aircraft, was the event that sparked his political quest.
An Apache appears to be doing crowd control to clear the runway for a C-17 military transport aircraft at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, as hundreds of people are trying to get on flights out of Afghanistan. pic.twitter.com/UzuMqiNjKc
— Christiaan Triebert (@trbrtc) August 16, 2021
Veterans, National Priorities, and a Recalibrated Military
Montana’s Senate contest, and incumbent Tester’s apparent maintenance in the Senate of the U.S. intervention, military spending, and foreign policy status quo are sure to see the effects of the unity coalition taking shape.
Given Democrats’ narrowly and bitterly held majority in the Senate, and the Senate’s capacity to make or break the incoming administration’s agenda, Montana’s veterans could decide the direction the country takes.
Montanans who served will no doubt watch the coalition forming around ending America’s costly conflicts, and Democrats’ full court press censoring and prosecuting political opponents, and weigh whether America is stronger today in the aftermath.
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