If I were Gavin Newsom’s political advisor, I’d handcuff him to the governor’s desk to keep him from going on podcasts and running his dumb mouth:
The military draft or something else position is often framed like this (Chris Kluwe’s response to Newsom):
I’ve heard this idea from different politicians over the decades, and my immediate, visceral response is: “you first”. You go take a year and a half from your life to do some underpaid, forced labor because some politician thinks the kids need toughening up, or straightening out, or whatever reason is behind this nonsense. When you get back, oops, someone else has your job, so we won’t have to listen to you anyway.
This is the worst kind of old-man-shouting-at-clouds. The military has said over and over that they prefer volunteers over conscriptees. If USAID or the Peace Corps or Americorps needs more volunteers, perhaps appropriate some money to pay their staff better. Don’t saddle them with thousands of uninterested young men and women who would rather be anywhere but there.
Also, chef’s kiss to Newsom on the timing of this insight, when we’re about to put some troops through the wood chipper in Iran. Perfect time to tell the young men and women of America that one of our big-name Democrats want to force them to join the military, so they, too, can bleed and die in a stupid war in the desert, just as some of their peers who volunteered are doing now.
