Here in the heart of the holidays, absence remains on my mind. It was in my thoughts before the Brown University and Bondi shootings cast a pall over the weekend for humanity in general. Before we learned about the murder of Rob and Michele Reiner, and before the president heaped indignity atop tragedy with a sleazy post that made him the first president to issue incorrect information about two different homicidal tragedies in a three-day span.

For more like a few months, the hidden cost of deployment has been on my mind. Active duty’s invisible toll is always an overlooked part of managing our country’s security, of course, but it’s a cost that cuts much deeper when the deployment is unwise. In the case of several thousand National Guard soldiers this year, “unwise” is a kind characterization.

At the risk of repeating myself Cato-style, Trump has deployed these service-oriented, brave Americans not out of necessity but as bait to provoke responses that he can manipulate to his political advantage. Anyone who cares to investigate the issue (or in Portland’s case, watch the amusing footage) knows that Trump was spinning fantasies of cities in sudden or critical crisis to excuse this power grab.

Because our government tends to give leaders the benefit of the doubt and assumes we won’t put narcissistic felons in positions of tremendous authority, DJT has gotten away with a lot of his plan.

But reckless authoritarian tactics come with several layers of cost.

Sure, the top layer is money. Taxpayer money, to be specific. According to Senate hearings last week, the various urban deployments have cost $340 million and climbing daily. But those are just direct costs like wages, transportation, etc.

What are the costs back home? In this case, home probably in a different state, thanks to DJT. Nearly all of these Guards are employed in civilian life. Their companies are doing without, trying to support their employees while colleagues are picking up slack. This is needless strain on owners and workers alike.

Then there’s the unnecessary toll on families. Significant others left alone. Spouses left to care for families, often while working themselves. Children separated from parents on an open-ended basis for bullshit reasons. The mental toll of the Guards themselves, knowing the burden that this deployment has created on their loved ones. In terms of health, of school, of stress, these individual disruptions all have ripple effects of their own.

I’m sure the rewards of landscaping duty and picking up sidewalk trash make it worthwhile for all involved.

It’s hard — impossible, really — to put a dollar figure on the kind of financial and emotional waste Trump has created with this stunt. As we saw in Washington, the debt gets straight-up immeasurable when this game actually hits paydirt in the form of Trump’s bait attracting trouble that should never have had the motive or opportunity to develop. Two good Americans lost their lives so Trump could build a desperate case for voter intimidation in next year’s midterms.

The abuse of good intentions, of actual patriotism, is sickening. For the second time in as many chances, a Republican president has invaded the wrong country, and now we’ve reached the holidays. Some service members will get to come home shortly, many will not.

May the empty chairs speak volumes this month, posing all the right questions about this deployment to everyone who is fortunate to share the warmth of a friendly, if incomplete, table.