# Is the US military a partisan organisation?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-military-a-partisan-organisation/384605>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [December 18, 2006, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-military-a-partisan-organisation/384605 "2006-12-18T08:16:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2007, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-military-a-partisan-organisation/384605/21 "2007-01-02T08:52:33Z")

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[http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/](http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/)

Josh Michaels over at _Talking Points Memo_ has some input on this from _NY Times_, Juan Cole, and others.

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**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2007, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-military-a-partisan-organisation/384605/22 "2007-01-02T08:58:53Z")

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The previous post does not exist. If you think it does, you are wrong, because it doesn’t. Adjust accordingly.

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**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2007, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-military-a-partisan-organisation/384605/23 "2007-01-02T12:37:28Z")

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[QUOTE=elucidator]  
They don’t, which I thought I was at pains to make clear. In a socialist regime, authoritarianism as it relates to the military has an entirely opposite political polarity, hence, authoritarianism is mostly indepenent of political persuasion.  
[/QUOTE]  
However, at the level of the individual, studies suggest that authoritarianism and conservative political orientation are highly correlated.

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**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2007, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-military-a-partisan-organisation/384605/24 "2007-01-02T18:31:44Z")

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[QUOTE=Sam Stone]  
Military personnel tend to vote Republican. And it’s not even by a small margin.  
[/QUOTE]  
It must then scare the pants off of Republican party faithful that Bush has lost the military for the Republicans.

[http://www.militarycity.com/polls/2006\_main.php](http://www.militarycity.com/polls/2006_main.php)

> [@](#):
>
> While Bush fared well overall, his political party didn’t. In the three previous polls, nearly 60 percent of the respondents identi fied themselves as Republicans, which is about double the popula tion as a whole. But in this year’s poll, only 46 percent of the military respondents said they were Republicans. However, there was not a big gain in those identifying themselves as Democrats — a fig ure that consistently hovers around 16 percent. The big gain came among people who said they were independents.

Now, the lack of commensurate gain among Democrats suggests that these independents could easily, and in all likelihood, would return to identifying themselves as Republicans. Clearly, however, when members of the military, (and in this poll, the older career military types were reportedly over-represented) stop ID’ing as Republicans, the shit is hitting the fan.

Perhaps the Democrats can take the opportunity to demonstrate that the “Democrats are hostile to the military” is just bullshit. Perhaps having so many more former members of the military among the ranks of elected Democrats will help to do just that.

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**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2007, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-military-a-partisan-organisation/384605/25 "2007-01-02T20:01:54Z")

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[QUOTE=elucidator]  
\*Full Manilla Jacket \*  
[/QUOTE]  
🙂

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