Targeting people because of their skin color remains a troubling pattern among certain Trump supporters, and a recent incident involving a senior citizen from New York appears to illustrate that once again. The elderly New Yorker reportedly became upset after seeing a Hispanic man in a Home Depot parking lot and suggested that he should “go back” to his own country. What the man did not realize, however, was that the person he was confronting was a U.S. military veteran who had served and fought for the United States.
This incident occurred in Kingston, New York, early in December and was uploaded to TikTok by user @jennifercoache, who is likely related to the US military vet in question. In the footage, a MAGA-aligned 65-year-old man can be seen arguing with a US military veteran outside a Home Depot because the senior citizen supposedly harassed him, telling him he’s “getting sent back, if you’re illegal.”
The veteran in question also served in Afghanistan and Iraq and has been in the US military for 14 years, and when he asked the 65-year-old man which wars he served in, the senior citizen apparently hadn’t fought in any US-related war. This prompted the veteran to question his 65-year-old harasser, “What did you do? Did you fight for your country?” in a literal sense, something the old man could only answer with “I stand for what’s right,” whatever that may be.
Apparently, “standing for what is right” means judging and harassing someone for their skin color and appearance, which is what the 65-year-old man did. At the end, the old man could only throw expletives at the army veteran because the latter apparently insulted the senior citizen’s idol, President Trump, by saying, “Only people like Trump like to touch little kids.”
Not the first veteran to be targeted, sadly
Now, despite being put in place by an army veteran, the 65-year-old MAGA supporter isn’t the last of his kind. Even those working for federal agencies, such as ICE, have been violating the rights of bona fide US military veterans; one of them was even detained in an ICE facility. Such cases have led to court hearings involving Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
Thus, many people online fear that the situation might get worse for veterans who are of darker skin tones, based on the action of the old MAGA supporter in the video above. “What I fear? The hispanic man put MAGA in his place, correct? I feel it’s going to come to a point, the racist is just going to pull out a gun and shoot them. Things are escalating too fast,” says a concerned commenter.
Meanwhile, others have pointed out that another MAGA-aligned old man, who also didn’t fight for his country, is now making life hard for US veterans, “You know who else didn’t fight for his country? Donald Trump, who was disqualified for the Vietnam draft in 1968 by the US armed forces medical examiner. Trump’s 2016 campaign claimed it was due to ‘bone spurs,’ but there’s no way to find out now.”
