The VSG's weird remarks about generals, soldiers and companies that make bombs

 1.) What he said:

President Trump said Monday that he has the support of U.S. troops, if not necessarily their bosses in the Pentagon.

“I'm not saying the military is in love with me, the soldiers are," Trump said at a Labor Day press conference. 

"The top people in the Pentagon probably aren't," the commander in chief continued, "because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies — that make the bombs, and make the planes, and make everything else — stay happy. But we're getting out of the endless wars."

2.) One has to believe that a big motivation was the results of an IVMF poll that, mind you, was conducted prior to The Atlantic/FoxNews/AP/WaPo story:

The latest Military Times poll shows a continued decline in active-duty service members’ views of President Donald Trump and a slight but significant preference for former Vice President Joe Biden in the upcoming November election among troops surveyed.

The results, collected before the political conventions earlier this month, appear to undercut claims from the president that his support among military members is strong thanks to big defense budget increases in recent years and promised moves to draw down troops from overseas conflict zones.

But the Military Times Polls, surveying active-duty troops in partnership with the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University, have seen a steady drop in troops’ opinion of the commander in chief since his election four years ago.

In the latest results — based on 1,018 active-duty troops surveyed in late July and early August — nearly half of respondents (49.9 percent) had an unfavorable view of the president, compared to about 38 percent who had a favorable view. Questions in the poll had a margin of error of up to 2 percent.

Among all survey participants, 42 percent said they “strongly” disapprove of Trump’s time in office.

3.) He's also clearly trying to frame this in Trumpist terms - that is, regular folks versus elites. But his use of the terms "top people" and "soldiers" rather than officers and enlisted shows that he's not too familiar with military categorizations.

4.) I don't think his "wonderful companies . . . that make the bombs . . . and planes" remark was a sop to the peacenik crowd. He never had them and never will. It's just a reflection of his incoherent approach to foreign policy, talking about getting out of endless wars one moment and a strong America on the world stage the next. And it's reflective of his tendency to shoot off his mouth about something (defense contractors) with no consideration that he will be needing to deal with them in the future, and a track record of diplomacy would serve him better than one of disparagement. 

5.) This once again shows his preoccupation with being admired. It's so central to his worldview that he makes no attempt to temper it.