Sean Hannity, who has never served a single fucking day in the military, is the textbook chickenhawk: a blustering, armchair warmonger who never hesitates to send other people’s kids off to die for his own partisan ends. He’s now calling for “IDF-style mandatory military service for Americans,” a proposal dripping with hypocrisy from a guy whose only battlefield experience is yelling into a microphone and dodging accountability for his own militaristic rhetoric. Hannity’s career is a monument to the grotesque marriage of militarism and right-wing media: he’s spent decades cheerleading for every disastrous war and military intervention, from Iraq to Iran, always framing it as a matter of national survival while never once volunteering to put on a uniform himself.
Hannity’s naked partisanship is legendary. From his relentless defense of George W. Bush’s Iraq War lies (“we were victorious in spite of the Democrats’ efforts and attempts at preventing victory”) to his sycophantic support for Donald Trump’s reckless saber-rattling with Iran, Hannity has consistently twisted military justifications to fit the GOP’s agenda. He’s called for bombing Iran “to hell,” celebrated the assassination of foreign officials, and—when not enough people are dying for his taste—pushed conspiracy theories like Uranium One to smear political opponents and whip up support for more intervention. He’s a master at using the language of patriotism and sacrifice to sell wars, while never once putting himself or his family on the line.
And let’s not forget the waterboarding farce. Hannity, the tough guy who thinks waterboarding “isn’t torture,” promised on national television to be waterboarded for charity—but, shockingly, he’s never followed through. It’s the same old bullshit: he’s happy to advocate for torture when it’s done to brown people overseas, but when it comes to experiencing it himself, he suddenly develops a case of selective amnesia. Keith Olbermann even offered to pay him $1,000 a second to go through with it, but Hannity’s cowardice won out, as usual. He’s all bluster and no backbone, a fucking fraud who’s spent his career making life harder for actual veterans and service members while profiting off their suffering.
Hannity’s latest call for mandatory military service is just another attempt to drape his partisan agenda in the flag. He doesn’t give a shit about service or sacrifice; he’s just looking for another way to demonize his opponents and glorify war. For those of us who actually served, or who care about the people who do, Hannity’s brand of militaristic posturing is not just insulting—it’s dangerous. He’s a disgrace to the uniform he never wore, and a living reminder of why we need to call out chickenhawks for the hypocrites they are. Fuck Sean Hannity and the war machine he rides.
