The lack of balance and context among journalists reporting the story is disappointing. But even if you’ve never covered the military, it takes less than 10 seconds to find context showing that this is standard procedure, instead of just framing the story as an extravagance and lack of character on the part of the secretary of war.
Even worse, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI), who served on the House Committee on the Budget, posted: “Trump and Republicans took food assistance away from hungry children, working parents, and veterans while enjoying $93 billion of things like lobster and steak.”
It points to an even larger problem, not just on Capitol Hill, but also among reporters and civilians. Our relationship and understanding of our military and military families is broken. Why? When you have less than half of 1% of people in this country currently serving in our military, our understanding of their lives is both limited and isolated.
This wasn’t the only instance this week of not understanding basic military protocol. When Hegseth didn’t salute an enlisted sailor, the internet went wild with theories that he didn’t return the salute because the man was black. But standard protocol is not to salute those enlisted who aren’t wearing their hat or cover — which the sailor wasn’t wearing. And even if he was wearing his cover, protocol requires saluting officers, not enlisted personnel. Hegseth did just that. Nonetheless, the post went viral with over 7 million views.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member