Well, it should be clear by now that the US spends entirely too much on the military. It might benefit us if their agitation led to some serious scrutiny of that part of the budget. I have never understood why it’s considered untouchable.
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Welfare for the South. Jerbs!
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The military budget absolutely deserves scrutiny, but let’s not forget that the Republicans have first dibs on patriotic fig leaves. Something tells me that if Trump or DeSantis get power, or if the Senate and House come under full Republican control that a forensic audit of military spending would be the last thing on their mind.
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Do they though? I mean, if you believe all the media rhetoric, then yeah… the history of war in the 20th century shows us that many of the wars were presided over by Democrats - both world wars, the vietnam war was largely expanded under Democratic presidencies, our involvement in Yugoslavia was under Clinton… Much like the belief that the GOP are the party of faith, this one doesn’t really hold up to historical scrutiny… The Democrats can play that game just as much, even if they are not viewed as such…
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I guess I didn’t mean to imply that Democrats aren’t complicit in the growth of military spending over the years - only that Republicans are (used to be?) first up for symbolic patriotic military displays, especially as a distraction from the other things they are doing. So cutting military spending would be decidedly off-brand for them. Whether they come by that branding honestly is another matter - perhaps that is something Democrats could use against their Republican opponents though?
The Democrats at least have a wing that is skeptical of military spending and Republicans weaponize that to portray the Democrats as a whole as the party that doesn’t “support the troops”.
I still can’t imagine any of today’s Republicans taking a serious look at reducing military spending were they to attain power. I can imagine that they would come up with genius ideas that would actually compromise military effectiveness, but they would implement them anyway for populist reasons.
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I get that… I just think that the Democrats do it as well, but aren’t given as much attention for it, nor is their actual actions as policy-makers taken into account by the public…
Honestly, this is really one of those few “both sides” things…
To be fair, so does the GOP now… a not insignificant portion of the freedom caucus is calling for cutting spending to Ukraine specifically, and then there is Rand Paul’s disingenuous grandstanding on military interventionism. And I’d argue that although there is certainly a more skeptical view among progressive Democrats, they’re a much smaller faction than they are often painted as…
Maybe, but I think that freedom caucus wing is growing… I think they’re preference is for more funneling of money to private contractors rather than directly to the US military, as was common, bipartisan policy for all of the Cold War and into the War on Terror…
Witness Tommy Tuberville… 
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[…]
For reference, the DoD’s goals for the F-35A is a mission capable rate of 90 percent, while it wants the B and C variants of the F-35, with their more complicated short takeoff and landing and carrier launch configurations, to have an 85 percent rate.
[…]
The F-35 fleet, with its variants fielded by the US Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, have been suffering from poor readiness rates due to maintenance challenges at the depot and organizational levels, leading to a backlog of more than 10,000 F-35 components waiting to be repaired.
[…]
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