The soldiers and Marines from blue-collar families who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan—who I can attest as an embedded war reporter were originally enthusiastic about the prospects of victory—in significant measure turned to Trump following the abject failure of both wars, something which became undeniably apparent around the beginning of the century’s second decade. Yet the failure of the Iraq War was never truly central to Trump’s election: not nearly as central as was the outsourcing of well-paying manufacturing jobs to China and other developing countries, the further job-killing effects of
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