IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO FATHOM DONALD TRUMP’S DISDAIN FOR THE MILITARY   Perspective from the 19th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.   I wrote about this the other day but cannot help myself but to do so again.   Donald Trump’s disdain for the military is so over-the-top that he doesn’t deserve to run for president.  Or, to serve as Commander in Chief of the military he despises.   If he gains that office, I think it would be hard for military service personnel to salute him.  Just as it should be hard, if not impossible, for any rational person to vote for him.   Trump doesn’t know the first thing about service in any category, including the military.  As he focuses continually on himself, he cannot understand why anyone would SERVE their country.   Rather than write more myself today, I choose to reprint a story that ran in Atlantic Magazine.  In a question-answer format, Atlantic writer Tom Nichols talked with his boss, Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, who has focused on Trump’s anti-military comments enough to write a book, On Heroism.  Which does not refer to Trump.   So, here is the reprint:   *********   Today, Atlantic Editions published a book by The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, about heroism — and why Donald Trump detests the men and women who display it.       Donald Trump has disgraced himself in many areas.  But his longevity in public life after expressing open contempt for the men and women of the United States military, and especially those who have been wounded or killed in the service of their country, is an appalling achievement unmatched by any of his predecessors.   Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg has written several important articles about Trump and his relationship with the military — he broke the story about Trump referring to America’s fallen soldiers as “losers” and “suckers” — and that reporting has now been gathered into a book for Atlantic Editions titled On Heroism.   I talked with Jeff over the holiday weekend about the book, and about how America has become so tolerant of a politician who regularly shows his disdain for the U.S. military.   Tom Nichols:  When I started reading this, I wondered about the title, which is about heroism, but really, so much of what you talk about here is the problem Trump has with honor, isn’t it?   Jeffrey Goldberg:  Well, yes.  Damn it.  Now we have to change the title.   Tom:  Too late.  But how do you see the difference between them?   Jeff:  Many people are honorable, but to me, any who have run toward the fire, the people who put themselves in danger for others, are committing acts of genuine heroism.  At the very least, we think of them as selfless or brave, and in the book, I talk about people who have shown that kind of valor:  John McCain is the most obvious example, along with General John Kelly, General Mark Milley, and others.   And Trump has attacked all of them, even calling some of them traitors.   Tom:  Is he intimidated by them?  It seems to me that honorable people aggravate and confuse Trump, but heroic people really seem to disgust him in some way, especially wounded warriors.  I mean, he seems to hate McCain even more than some of his political enemies who are still alive.   Jeff:  That’s why I wrote about heroism.  It’s a quality we all value, but Trump actually seems jealous of people who have committed acts of genuine heroism, and so he demeans them.  And I think it might even be more than jealousy; it’s also cowardice.   Somewhere deep inside him, maybe he has just enough self-knowledge to know that he himself would not be capable of such acts, and that realization makes him angry.   Tom:  As you were saying that, I was thinking of him bragging about how he would have run right into the Parkland school back in 2018 — without a weapon! — to take out the shooter.  Almost like he was trying to convince himself.   Jeff:  You have to wonder about anyone who says that.  You don’t really know what you would do in that situation.  No one does.  But he felt he had to say it.  He reacted defiantly when he was shot at in July, but that’s not a situation he volunteered for, and it’s definitely not a moment that called for selflessness or self-sacrifice.   Even while he’s talking about what a hero he’d have been at Parkland, he has always had this inability to understand people who risk their lives, much like he couldn’t understand the men who didn’t claim they had bone spurs to get out of being sent to Vietnam.   Tom:  Well, other people of his generation got deferments too.  But he seems almost gleeful, like he put one over on the guys who served.  It’s like his apparent belief that only idiots pay their taxes.   Jeff:  Yes, it’s a very Leona Helmsley attitude that societal obligations are for the little people.  It’s even more than Trump failing the binary choice between cowardice and heroism; it’s also about selflessness and selfishness.  And one thing you don’t want in a president is selfishness.   Tom:  “What was in it for them?”   Jeff:  Right.  And remember, that question — “What was in it for them?” — is even worse because he said it to General Kelly in Arlington National Cemetery, literally standing at the grave site of Kelly’s son, a fallen Marine first lieutenant.   To me, that moment really shows how his instincts are so unnatural:  His immediate inclination in such situations is to disparage the people who served, to talk about how dishonorable it is for someone like John McCain to be captured.   He did it to George H. W. Bush, too.  Bush was one of the youngest pilots in the Navy, and Trump called him a “loser” because he was shot down over the Pacific.   Tom:  Are we at the part where we ask why?   Jeff:  I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out the kind of person who has such thoughts.  You can explain some of it by just accepting who Trump is:  He’s a huckster, a con man, and what do all con men have in common?  Contempt for the mark. In Trump’s case, everyone is the mark, so he has this contempt for all people, including his own supporters.  But ultimately that’s not the issue, and at this point, we don’t have to sit around trying to understand the deep currents that cause him to think this way. The man was president, and he wants to be president again.  The record is plain.   This is the truth of Donald Trump:  He has contempt for men and women who serve their country.   Tom:  Okay, psycho-analyzing Trump is a job for professionals, but how is it that more people are not appalled by this?  The one thing that unites most Americans is respect for the people who serve the nation in the military.   Jeff:  You’ve asked what is, to me, the most mysterious question.   It’s not “Why is Donald Trump this way?” but “How could Trump say the things he said even back in 2015 and not immediately be driven from the Republican Party by its own voters?”   What happened in our country that allowed someone to insult a hero, a POW who was tortured for years, and then survive and thrive in American politics?   Tom:  And?   Jeff:  Well, one answer is that you have to remember that Trump and his people regularly engage in concerted campaigns to deny that Trump ever said any of these things.  They went especially hard after the revelations about him referring to the dead as “suckers” and “losers” and claimed that it was all fabricated, despite Kelly confirming it.   That’s another amazing part of all this, by the way:  John Kelly, Gold Star father, Marine four-star general, combat veteran, is disbelieved over Donald Trump, who has been proven again and again to be a liar.  It really shows how central it is to Trumpism to deny the realities of Donald Trump.   Tom:  But no one denies what he said about John McCain, right? That’s on video and he’s pretty proud of it.   Jeff:  The McCain comments are the hardest ones for me to explain, in part because I am a great admirer of McCain’s, and I have a hard time imagining how anyone, regardless of their politics, could see McCain as anything but the apotheosis of bravery.  But also because that one incident really undid my understanding of American politics.   Tom:  How so?   Jeff:  If you could count on anything in America, and especially in Republican politics — if you had a list titled “Things Republican Candidates Cannot Do” — I think “insulting war heroes” would be near the top of that list.   Our society venerates combat heroes.  Trump very often treats them with open contempt.  Just think about how he has repeatedly demeaned wounded veterans, demanding that they be kept out of parades, out of his sight. And yet Republicans have nominated him for president three times.  I still cannot adequately explain it.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

A critic of this blog headline might say that I arrived at this position – not rooting as much for University of Oregon football — because of last weekend’s underwhelming performance.

I suppose, partly yes.

But the real reason is that, after thinking about this off and on for several months, I decry what the U of O – and other West Coast universities – did:  They went for the money, loyalty be damned.

Sure, heading for the money dominates many sports, including one of my favorites, golf, where many top players bolted for the now three-year-old LIV Tour rather than staying with the PGA Tour, which had made them rich…rich enough.

But when the U of O bolted for the Big 10 (which, I add, why is it still called the Big 10 when it now includes 18 institutions?), it left Oregon which had given it years of support.

At one point, as the bolting occurred, U of O President Karl Scholz said “the university left the Pac-12 to remain financially stable and self-sufficient, noting that its athletic department was self-funded and would remain so.  The move to the Big Ten will provide ‘stability and visibility’ for the Ducks.”

Sounds okay, I suppose.

But the statement turns it back on the Northwest.  Going for “the money” instead of making things better here.

Joining the so-called “Big 10” will mean one thing for football, which has money to burn.  But it will mean for other sports, with a lot of travel out of the West Coast.

So, enough of the U of O for me.

I also worry about the future of the PAC 2 – Oregon State University and Washington State University.  They deserve consideration, whatever that may be, as they strive to survive.

For now, good that they have stayed home —  unlike the U of O and the University of Washington.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Writing in The Atlantic Magazine, Tom Nichols makes the point in the headline.

Unfortunately, it appears to be true these days as Kamala Harris runs against Donald Trump who doesn’t care much for policy.  He doesn’t even know what the term means.

He prefers invective against — any and all.

Nichols summarizes the status this way:

“The Kamala Harris campaign seems to understand that it is pointless to run against Donald Trump on policy.  Despite criticism from the press and demands for more policy details, Harris and Tim Walz have adopted a pragmatic strategy after their national convention.”

At the Convention, the Obamas, Barack and Michelle, were reported to have done a great job on two counts – (a) advocating for Harris as a candidate who would continue building the “hope and change” emphasis, and (b) skewering Trump as a candidate out for only himself.

Michelle delivered one of the best lines when she wondered if Trump knew that “one of the ‘Black jobs’ he had contended were going to immigrants could actually go to Harris!

So, I guess, bid policy farewell and hope that Harris’ momentum keeps up.

On the other hand, another analyst suggested that, as the campaign continues for a few weeks, policy issues may assert themselves as being important – policy beyond the descriptions of the candidates themselves.

If that is true, my sense is that Harris will be prepared for policy if such issues advance and Trump will still find himself flummoxed, for policy is not a strong suit for him, or , in fact, any suit at all.

No less a seasoned political analyst than James Carville showed up in the New York Times this week to advocate that Harris needs to do three things to defeat Trump:

1. Don’t get in Trump’s way as he hurts himself by his over-the-top conduct, especially in presidential debates.

• Break from President Joe Biden to set her own policy course, even if, as stated above, policy may not matter very much in the minds of some voters.

• Display growth from the last time she ran for president in 2020.

If she does this, Carville concluded with this:

“Throughout my nearly 40 years in the campaign war rooms, through every election loss and victory, one thing has remained consistent:  The most thunderous sound in politics is the boom of a single page as it turns from one chapter to the next.

“This November, will we drag ourselves back again, succumbing to politics of fear and anger, or instead do the most audacious thing we can and once more turn the page to a new chapter in American life?

“I know that Kamala Harris represents that next chapter. If she stays fresh, soon the American people will, too.”

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

If anyone needed any more information to verify this blog headline – Donald Trump knows nothing about military service – look no farther than last week.

According to Atlantic Magazine, Trump visited the sacred ground of Arlington National Cemetery, where many of America’s war dead are buried.  There, with thumbs up, Trump posed for photos.

And, then, he did was he always does – by his conduct, he verified that he knows absolutely nothing about genuine military service.  A fact that should disqualify him from trying to serve again as the Commander in Chief.

The Atlantic goes on – and I reprint a lot of story here because it provides solid facts about Trump abhorrent behavior:

“In the strangest of these pictures, the former president is smiling and giving a thumbs-up by the grave of a Marine.

“It’s an image of a man who has no idea how to behave around fallen heroes.

“Trump was at Arlington ostensibly to honor the memory of the 13 service members who were killed in a suicide bombing during the chaotic final days of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“The event was supposed to be respectful and private; according to a press-pool note, the families of the troops had asked that there be no media coverage in the area where the service members were buried.  

“But Trump seemed to have other ideas.

“According to a report by NPR, Trump’s campaign staff got into a verbal and physical altercation with a cemetery official who tried to stop campaign staffers from filming and taking photographs in the area of the cemetery reserved for recently fallen soldiers.

“The cemetery confirmed that an incident took place, but did not provide any details, instead noting in a statement that federal law prohibits ‘political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries.’

“Trump-campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said that ‘there was no physical altercation as described,’ and added in a post on X that Trump had been allowed a private photographer on the premises.

“But in his statement, Cheung also accused the cemetery official who’d tried to block Trump’s staff of ‘clearly suffering from a mental health episode.’

“It’s hard to see Trump’s visit as anything but a campaign stop intended to court the military vote.

“Speaking to a group of National Guard members in Detroit later that day, he blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the failures of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

“By now, Trump’s use of the military as a prop for his own ends should surprise no one.  Despite his vigorous avoidance of military service, Trump has a long history of denigrating the service of others, even as he poses as a defender of the nation’s military.

“As a candidate for the Republican nomination in 2015, he mocked Senator John McCain’s status as a prisoner of war.  ‘He’s not a war hero,’ Trump said at the time.  ‘I like people who weren’t captured.’

“Later, as president, he told his then–chief of staff John Kelly that he didn’t want ‘any wounded guys’ in his planned Independence Day parade:  ‘This doesn’t look good for me.’

“But Trump is especially out of place around the nation’s fallen troops.

“As reported by The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, Trump went to Arlington Cemetery with Kelly on Memorial Day 2017 and visited the gravesite of Kelly’s son Robert, who had been killed in Afghanistan.

“Standing next to the former Marine general, Trump said:  ‘I don’t get it. What was in it for them?’

“In 2018, Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris; as Goldberg reported, Trump told staff members that the cemetery was ‘filled with losers.’

“Trump also ‘referred to the more than 1,800 Marines who’d lost their lives at Belleau Wood as suckers for getting killed,’ according to Goldberg’s reporting.”

That’s enough, except for this comment from me.

Trump denigrates the service of the military, thus indicating that a person who didn’t serve – and got out of service obligations by a variety of shenanigans — doesn’t understand the first thing about the idea of service for the nation.

So, then, why do some of my good friends who say they value military service continue supporting Trump? 

There is no rational explanation.

Just as there is not for Trump!

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

On this Labor Day holiday, I choose to write, not about typical political rallies on such a day as this, but, instead, about a political issue that will roil debates in Oregon for a number of months.

It is this:

If state revenue – read, taxpayer money – arrives in government coffers 2 per cent above previous estimates, should the money stay with the state or be returned to taxpayers?

At the moment, under a law that rests in the Oregon Constitution – it is called the “kicker” law – the money goes back to taxpayers.  Put another way to illustrate the label, it is “kicked” back to taxpayers.

This raises a political issue that has been with us in Oregon since the kicker law was passed in 1979.

Many Democrats, who are in charge in Oregon, want to keep the money to spend on state programs.  By contrast, many Republicans want the money to be kicked back.

So far, those who favor the kicked back approach have won most of the political debates and my sense, again this time, is that the kicker law will stay in place.

The reason:  If you ask taxpayers, most want “their money” back.

The kicker law passed about 40 years ago because those in charge of Oregon’s political process at the time believed it was important to place a lid on how much money government could spend.  Otherwise, the state would just spend ALL the money.

This issue arose again last week as state economists told legislators that more money continues to arrive in state coffers.  As reported by the Oregonian newspaper, the prediction is that Oregonians, in total, will receive a $987 million kicker tax credit in 2026.

On another hand, even with the kicker refund, the increased tax revenue means that lawmakers will have $676 million more than previously expected to allocate in next year’s legislative session.  That, too – more money overall — will argue in favor of the kicker staying in place.

Beyond the kicker, the state’s economy remains stable as inflation rates continue to cool.  There are positive signs, like a low unemployment rate of 4.2 per cent, but there are also challenges, such as ongoing layoffs by some of the state’s largest employers.

Corporate and personal income taxes have outpaced expectations since the last economic forecast in June.  At that time, economists indicated that there was a “50-50 proposition” that Oregonians would receive a kicker tax credit in 2026 of $582 million.  That is now up a bit.

Meanwhile, on another state revenue front, the Legislature will likely consider several potential funding sources for next year’s transportation package, including increasing the gas tax or implementing a tax on the number of miles every Oregonian drives.

Top Republicans have indicated that they will not support any increased or new taxes, but it is possible the 2025 Legislature will feature super-majorities on the part of Democrats, which means they can pass tax increases without any Republican support.

In the old lobbying phrase, “only time will tell.”