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It appears there’s no act too petty for the Trump administration in its disturbing push to politicize the U.S. military.
Donald Trump’s Monday announcement that an alumni group at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point will renege on its plans to honor actor Tom Hanks pales in comparison with the seriousness of the president’s deployment of military forces to Democratic-led cities against their leaders’ request. But together, both acts demonstrate the breadth of Trump’s efforts to turn the U.S. armed forces into entities that serve his personal and political interests above all else.
An announcement in June said Hanks was to receive the Sylvanus Thayer Award for outstanding citizens this year for his on-screen depictions of military officials, his yearslong support for military organizations and his efforts to promote military history. But a West Point alumni group is now saying it will not hold the award ceremony at all. It's not immediately clear if the award is being revoked or if Hanks will be presented with it in some other format.
Officially, the rescission is being chalked up to logistics. In an email reviewed by The Washington Post, the CEO for West Point’s Association of Graduates said the cancellation “allows the Academy to continue its focus on its core mission of preparing cadets to lead, fight, and win as officers in the world’s most lethal force, the United States Army” — although it’s not clear how granting the award would actually have harmed military readiness.
But Trump’s announcement Monday certainly suggested politics may have been behind the group's decision to rescind its offer to honor the actor.
A post from his Truth Social account claimed “We don’t need destructive, WOKE recipients getting our cherished American Awards” before appearing to place the military honor on the same plane of respectability as an Academy Award for actors. “Hopefully the Academy Awards, and other Fake Award Shows, will review their Standards and Practices in the name of Fairness and Justice,” he continued. This attack is ironic when one considers that just a few years ago, Trump-aligned conservatives on Fox News were claiming Hanks was under attack from NPR for being insufficiently woke, as reporter Justin Baragona noted. But as we know: Ideological consistency isn’t the MAGA movement’s calling card.
Trump’s attack, in purported defense of the military’s honor, was quite a harsh condemnation from a man who’s belittled prisoners of war and who was ordered to repay misused funds he received via a fundraiser ostensibly dedicated to veterans. Needless to say, the president probably shouldn’t be wielding influence over whom an alumni group chooses to honor. But as Trump seeks to make the military in his image, the armed forces — at least in the West Point alumni group’s case here — appear to be taking up his petty grievances.