Abby Vesoulis
June 6, 2025
"On Friday afternoon, thousands of veterans who fought wars on behalf of the United States descended on the National Mall in Washington, DC, to fight something else: cuts proposed by the Trump administration.
Since his inauguration in January, President Donald Trump has moved to slash and burn the federal workforce—and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is no exception. Already, the sprawling agency serving America’s 16 million military veterans has fired 2,400 probationary workers and proposed eliminating an additional 15 percent of its workforce—about 80,000 people.">
I may just be a dumb fucking grunt - but I know one thing for sure. Trump does not now, nor has he ever really cared about the military, veterans or their families; he just wants your votes.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask a question
I’ve never been in the military, but I’m horrified by how Trump treats veterans.
My question is, why do so many veterans support Trump?
Historicaly pay goes up under Republicans for military members and stays stagnant under Democrats. There are a lot of other impactful things today to consider like lack of care for trans dependants now taking effect. But really pre-trump Republican was the way to vote for immediate situational improvement as a military member.
Facebook and manosphere, my boy. If you go to a lot of vet groups you will see what I mean. It was like this back in 2013 when I delete by fb.
Former Army here…
Recruiters prey on small towns with no opportunities and people have been raised with the rural conservative values. It’s hard to beat that out of people, even when they’re exposed to more worldly things. When they return to the shit hole conservative towns they were raised in post enlistment, they are again surrounded by people who believe that way.
The military usually votes to support the Republican Party. Mostly because they do a better job of protecting gun rights and usually have a better reputation when it comes to supporting the military industrial complex and spending tax money on wars
But in 2016 when I was stationed out at Fort Riley, I knew way more people who hated Trump that I knew people who were willing to vote for him 
The cuts are even worse when you realize that before them only 18% of veterans got the full benefits they’re entitled to.
Makes sense given that Trump is fighting against the US.
Oh, did he do the thing he said he was gonna do before you voted for him?
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I’m finding it difficult to sympathize with them. They dug their own grave and must now lie in it.
I sure as fuck didn’t.
Burial services are provided by the National Cemetery Administration which is a part of the VA. That service has not (yet) been cut. Hopefully your metaphor is not prescient.
I get that people should not be surprised when the face eating leapord they voted for eats their face. But not everyone voted for him and less voted for these cuts to VA.
If not sympathy, try empathy. I hope we do not wind up in a future where Veteran are responsible for digging their own graves.
If they voted for Trump, or abstained…sure. No vet should’ve voted for Trump, he made it very clear on numerous occasions that he has no respect for them. Idiots voting for Trump because he had an R next to his name, despite the fact that he hates your guts…sure. Have at it.
Military used to be a good career choice, particularly if you came from limited means and had even more limited options.
But they don’t take good care of the vets…and even worse, there’s still plenty of vets who were drafted and didn’t even volunteer for service.
You got downvoted but stats do show they did heavily lean towards voting for this
That’s a misleading picture. Yes, the population of veterans did support Trump over Harris, but the population of veterans skews overwhelmingly male, white, and old.
Look at Pew’s 2023 survey. Among veterans:
- 28% are under 50, 36% are between 50-69, and 37% are over 70.
- 74% are white non-Hispanic.
- 89% are men.
Meanwhile, Biden probably won among active duty in 2020.
I suspect that if you surveyed veterans under the age of 50, you’d get a very different result. Or, if you surveyed the general non population but weighted it to be as old, white, or male as the veteran population, would the results be very different from veterans generally?
Wasn’t the shocking thing about trump election results was that he gained votes from non whites so assumptions on racial demographics ended up being unreliable?
In 2016 Hillary Clinton won Hispanic voters by a margin of 38 percentage points, according to exit polls. By 2020 Joe Biden’s margin had shrunk to 33 points. This year early exit polling conducted by CNN suggests that Ms Harris’s margin of victory among Hispanic voters is just eight percentage points—a remarkable collapse if right.
Assumptions about how younger people would vote is also what led to the shocking results
Trump picked up a larger proportion of voters under 30 than any Republican presidential candidate since 2008, according to NBC News exit polling, improving with both young men and young women.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/yes-trump-improved-young-men-drew-young-women-rcna179019
Men still make up the majority of military
the percentage of women serving in uniform has increased slightly from 17.5% in 2022 to 17.7% in 2023. https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4006144/dods-2023-demographics-report-indicates-more-women-fewer-separations/
So question would be are active military members more likely to lean liberal or conservative compared to their demographic?
As a veteran I can’t understand that they did. We swore to defend the constitution and then they vote for someone who incited an insurrection.
Honestly, voting for Trump violated their oath to defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. As you say, he staged an insurrection. He tried to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power and overturn the results of a legitimate election. No matter what Trump’s pet SCOTUS says, we all saw it on television. He is a domestic enemy.
Yes, exactly. And if anyone should have known better, it should have been us veterans.
There are people who voted for Trump in the military, but I don’t think it’s significantly higher than the number of veterans who just would’ve voted Republican, white for any of our Republican candidate. I think the military going heavy on support for Trump is a stereotype.

