The Trump campaign’s attack on the military career of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz – who honorably served for 24 years as a volunteer in the National Guard – is a call for us to remember the military service of former President Donald J. Trump.

Trump’s military service is not remembered, however, as he never served. The same goes for his two older sons, his father Fred, or his grandfather Friedrich Trump, who originally came to this country to avoid the draft in his native Germany and was barred from returning there as punishment for refusing to serve in the military. The fact is that Donald and his descendants grew up in the United States and enjoyed all the benefits that came with it as a direct result of old Friedrich’s refusal to serve in the military.

That sketchy history won’t stop Trump and his minions from continuing to attack Walz – the latest cycle in a long Republican history of denigrating the service of political opponents, almost always with a barrage of falsehoods. The practice is known as “swiftboating,” a term that arose from the 2004 flood of propaganda lies about Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s courageous and highly decorated Vietnam service.

One of the main authors of that slimy chapter, GOP operative Chris LaCivita, is now leading the Trump campaign’s smear campaign against Walz. These are the same kind of “patriots” who once derided Sen. Max Cleland, the late Georgia Democrat who lost three limbs in Vietnam and received the Bronze and Silver Stars — and who smirked when Trump derided the late Sen. John McCain’s POW ordeals.

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Trump may think he can vilify Walz without consequence by hiding behind his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, who enlisted in the Marines and served, albeit briefly, in Iraq. Vance, proving himself a useful tool as always, has aggressively insulted Walz over a few minor footnotes about the Minnesota governor’s service record, including whether he carried an assault weapon “in war,” when he decided to retire from the Guard and what rank he could legitimately claim after retiring.

None of this is a serious criticism of Walz or his policies — and that’s why it hasn’t hurt him that Republicans repeat these tired allegations every time they run for office. (The allegations against Walz didn’t gain any credibility when Minnesota media revealed that two former National Guard officers had been paid by Republicans to make the allegations.)

As for Vance, the Ohio senator is certainly a tough guy. He deserves credit for his service. But his record does not reflect a real fighting spirit. During his four years in the Marine Corps, he spent six months in Iraq as a “combat correspondent,” meaning he interviewed real fighters and wrote their stories for service publications. As he admitted in his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” “I was lucky not to miss a real fight.”

Trump was also lucky, albeit in a different way: his rich father had ensured that young Donald avoided being drafted to Vietnam, just as George Herbert Walker Bush had done for his son George W., who was given a secure place in the Texas Air National Guard in the USA.

When Trump was no longer able to rely on academic leave, he suddenly developed a disease that made him unfit for military service: bone spurs in one or both feet. (He does not remember which foot was allegedly affected by this painful condition.) A lifelong athlete who has often boasted about his athletic prowess, Trump was undoubtedly tormented by this sudden, debilitating illness.

Or was he? As reporters later discovered when he was running for president, both of the podiatrists who confirmed those disqualifying bone spurs had rented office space from the Trump Organization. By the time questions arose in 2016, those doctors had died and their records were no longer available. But the daughters of one of them told The New York Times that their entire family knew their father had relayed Donald’s diagnosis as a “favor” to landlord Fred — and that as a tenant, he had been rewarded by Trump with exceptional services.

Isn’t that something special? No wonder Trump feels compelled to hug the flag wherever he goes.

This is the parody of patriotism we have come to expect from the Republican Party, especially under Trump. Actual service to the nation – a calling to which men like Walz have devoted their entire lives as teachers, National Guard officers and public servants – is dismissed and despised in favor of partisan political interests. Con artists and fraudsters who have spent their lives serving only themselves are somehow elevated to cult status.

With this election, these fraudsters are once again testing the credulity of voters. Their success would be America’s failure.

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