Evan Munsing: Slouching Toward Failure
By Evan Munsing
Some years ago, during a time of war, I stood in front of the American flag and took an oath to defend this nation against its enemies. I swore my oath to the Constitution—not to a president, not to a party, and not to a man. That distinction matters now more than ever.
Our Constitution was written by men who had won a long and bitter war against a corrupt government led by an incompetent king. Over half of the delegates at the Constitutional Congress had served on the battlefield; the rest had served in critical roles in government, finance, and diplomacy. All had put their lives in grave danger to serve this new nation.
Civilian control of the military is the cornerstone of our democracy. Our military obeys the commands of civilian leaders: a President elected by the people and a Secretary of Defense vetted and approved by representatives of the people. The military exists to serve the people and defend them against real dangers: foreign adversaries, insurrections, and a limited set of other emergencies.
The Founders understood that the military must be used sparingly and only in moments of true crisis. There is no such crisis in Washington D.C. today. Local law enforcement has been doing its job. Crime is down. Congress has not authorized a military deployment. Yet Trump presses forward anyway, deploying the military with no respect for law or precedent. That is not leadership. It is a betrayal of the sacred trust between those who serve and those with the power of command.
The Oath of Enlistment is an explicit promise to the nation: I will make any sacrifice to defend the country I love. In return, our nation makes an implicit promise: that the military will be used only for honorable ends and as part of a coherent and intelligent national strategy. The men and women who serve in uniform want to know that when (not if) they are asked to make sacrifices – time away from loved ones, hardship, physical and psychological wounds, and perhaps death – that their sacrifice will be worth something.
These men and women do not serve to be used as a prop on television, trotted out when a President feels the need to project strength in the face of plummeting poll numbers, economic malaise, or the Epstein scandal. And let’s speak plainly: that’s what he’s using them for. Marines in Los Angeles, the birthday parade, the National Guard in DC. There was no military rationale for any of that. It’s all just for show.
We need to be clear about what this means. When a president uses the military to cover up political failures or to project an image of power for domestic consumption, it is not strength. It is a failure. A failure of our institutions, of our elected leaders, of American values, and of the balance of powers the Framers designed to prevent exactly this kind of behavior.
That is why we must demand more from our elected leaders. We do not want a commander-in-chief who sees service members as props for his political ambitions. We need presidents who respect the limits of their office, who understand that power restrained is as important as power exercised. And we need a functioning Congress – one that upholds its own Constitutional obligations to serve as a check and a balance against executive overreach and to guide the nation with laws both necessary and proper.
But we won’t get there just by wishing it so. We all have an obligation to act.
I made the decision to run for Congress because I believe that we deserve better leaders: leaders who are willing to do the hard work, to fight for American values, and to make decisions that matter. Leaders who understand the military exists to protect America’s freedom, not to mask political failures. We need–we deserve–leaders who are not interested in trading away lines of the Constitution for followers on social media. Leaders who will put country before ego, the rule of law before personal power. Because if we fail to ask for that now, we may soon find ourselves in a position where we can’t ask for anything.
Evan Munsing is a Marine combat veteran and Democratic Candidate for Congress, CO-08.
