Trump Admin. War on Minorities Could Undermine Iran War Effort
On March 23, Gen. Stanley McChrystal was interviewed by New York Times columnist David French. He made a point to trumpet diversity as one of the United States military’s greatest strengths.
“I think people ought to look like whatever they look like so that they are capable in their jobs. I think the idea that we wouldn’t want gay or transgender service members to serve — if they’re good — is preposterous. I want whoever’s good to serve,” said General McChrystal.”
Tragically, the wisdom of a leader like McChrystal has given way to parochial, chest-beating peacocks like Secretary of Defense, err War, Pete Hegseth. His obsession with racial discrimination, in the guise of fighting “wokeness”, has led to an ugly race to the bottom with dire national security implications.
In his 2024 book, “The War on Warriors,” Hegseth belittled senior officers as “cowards hiding under stars” and “whores to wokesters.” He wrote, “The Left captured the military quickly, and we must reclaim it at a faster pace. We must wage a frontal assault. A swift counterattack, in broad daylight.”
That is one sordid promise Hegseth has kept. In his distorted view, any minority who has succeeded in the armed services must have risen in the ranks thanks to their special status. They are obviously incompetent, in his telling, and were only promoted due to affirmative action or political correctness. These decorated soldiers have earned medals and ribbons, but they supposedly lack merit despite their accomplishments.
Yes, that’s quite a leap in logic coming from a lifelong loser who is the least credentialed, most incompetent, morally unfit Secretary of Defense in American history. He only got the job because Donald Trump thought he looked good on Fox & Friends.
A wife-beating drunk who was excoriated by his own mother for abusing women, he was elevated to his position only after promising Congress that he would put down the bottle, which he presumably has surreptitiously converted into a hidden flask.
In Hegseth’s inverted world, merit is being a white Christian nationalist with a coiffed hairdo, a semi-square jaw, and a bloviating TV platform. He didn’t work his way to the top, instead he whined his way into the Pentagon by falsely portraying the military as undermined by Joe Biden and overrun by the weak and woke. His plaintive, yet successful, performance was tailored for an audience of one—who happened to be our former and current president.
In our brainy age of drones, the Space Force and AI precision guided munitions, Hegseth has opted to highlight brawn. He competes with Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert “Quack” Kennedy Jr., to see who can do the most pushups and chin-ups. Unfortunately, the two lightweights can’t make up for their shortcomings in the weightroom. Albeit, I’d rather Hegseth be at the gym than in the office, where the “merit-chosen genius” was giving away our classified war plans on unprotected Signal chats.
Hegseth’s primitive, anachronistic outlook on race hit its nadir this week. He inexplicably blocked the promotion of four Army officers to one-star generals, which The New York Times described as, “a highly unusual move that has prompted some senior military officials to question whether the officers are being singled out because of their race or gender.”
Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll was a hero. He stalled on Hegseth’s discriminatory orders for months, refusing to expunge the deserving officers’ names from a promotion list. Two of the officers targeted are African Americans and two are women. Of the three dozen being elevated, most are white men.
The New York Times went on to reveal, “the chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all five service chiefs and nine of the military’s 10 combatant commanders are white men, a return to the status quo that existed for decades.”
The worst part of this dispiriting story was the conversation that allegedly occurred last summer between Driscoll and Ricky Buria, Hegseth’s chief of staff. It was over the expected promotion of Maj. Gen. Antoinette R. Gant, who was slated to take command of the Military District of Washington, DC. The Times reported:
The frustrations with Mr. Hegseth’s approach came to a boil last summer during a heated exchange between Ricky Buria and Mr. Driscoll. Mr. Buria chastised the Army secretary for selecting Maj. Gen. Antoinette R. Gant, a combat engineer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Buria told Mr. Driscoll that President Trump would not want to stand next to a Black female officer at military events, the officials said.Mr. Hegseth’s office retreated. General Gant began serving in the position last summer and was promoted to two-star rank earlier this month. [Mr. Buria called the account of his interaction with Mr. Driscoll “completely false.”]
Race was one factor in the brouhaha over Maj. Gant. However, another key element must be considered. On January 6, 2021, Trump attempted a violent coup to stay in power after Joe Biden cleaned his clock in a free and fair election. If the President attempts a second insurrection, which is entirely possible, if not likely, it would be inconvenient having Gant in charge of a “command that provides security in the nation’s capital.”
From Trump and Hegseth’s twisted perch, it’s less likely that a black woman would allow our nation’s capital to be overrun by Proud Boy thugs or treasonous military units defending an aspiring dictator over the United States Constitution. Trump is particularly concerned after his treasonous efforts were thwarted by General Mark Milley, who as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took several extraordinary steps during the final months of the Trump administration to act as a “guardrail” against the President’s unique threat to the constitutional order.
In any case, Hegseth and Trump appear to be restructuring the military where there are two-tiers. One where white men can, “Be All You Can Be” and a lesser track with a cement ceiling, where one can “Be All A Black Soldier Can Be”, which excludes top leadership roles, particularly if it involves being photographed with President Trump.
Many Americans still have an outdated view of what a United States military officer looks like. They often picture the caricature in the cartoon American Dad. In reality, there are honorable gay soldiers uplifting their units, and transgender service members too, at least before the Pentagon’s bigoted purge. Approximately 43 percent of the 1.3 million troops on active duty are people of color.
In the midst of war with Iran, one wonders how the Trump administration’s actions affect the morale of nearly half of those engaged in battle? What are minority soldiers to make of the regime moving to restore the names of nine Army installations to their original treasonous Confederate titles?
This shift involved renaming sites like Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg and Fort Moore back to Fort Benning, Fort Eisenhower returning to Fort Gordon and Fort Cavazos to Fort Hood. Trump and Hegseth’s reverence toward the defenders of slavery and honoring disloyal secessionists is a grotesque perversion of American values and a slap—no punch–in the face to black patriots serving our country to preserve freedom.
Additionally, Hegseth gratuitously ordered the removal of the name USNS Harvey Milk from a ship, which honored the gay rights icon and Navy veteran. For gay and lesbian soldiers, this certainly can’t make them feel valued or respected—even as they face potential injury or death fighting against Iran.
Trump and Hegseth’s discriminatory actions are not just nasty and unfair. Their short-sighted stupidity constitutes a dire threat to national security and global stability.
In their professed effort to eliminate affirmative action and promote service members solely based on merit—these hypocrites have done the opposite of their stated intentions. They have elevated race as a defining feature for promotions and success. It is right wing woke on steroids—that far surpasses and eclipses the Left-Wing variety. The end result could be a severe brain drain that weakens our defense and places America at risk against sophisticated enemies like Russia and China.
If that weren’t scary enough, we are in the middle of a war where Hegseth delusionally imagines himself a holy warrior who is divinely reenacting The Crusades. At the taxpayer funded Pentagon, Hegesth invoked an exclusionary, sectarian prayer, “Every day, on bended knee, with your family, in your schools, in your churches,” he said, “in the name of Jesus Christ.” Is Hegseth unaware that he also commands Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and atheist service members?
In a recent interview with “60 Minutes” on CBS News, Hegesth said, “The providence of our almighty God is there protecting those troops, and we’re committed to this mission.”
This echoed evangelical leader Franklin Graham at this week’s CPAC conference who said, “He [God] stepped up to protect Israel and the Jewish people from what I believe was the possibility of a nuclear annihilation by the radical Islamic regime. Thank God for President Trump.”
Whatever one’s views on this war, it’s beyond dangerous to send U.S. troops into battle to fulfill a biblical prophecy to usher in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Such zealotry directly contradicts a core explanation for this war, which is fighting to stop a fanatical Shiite Muslim regime from possessing catastrophic weapons. Quite frankly, Hegseth and his ilk sound a bit too much like the ayatollahs and mullahs we are fighting against.
At the end of the day, who would you rather have protecting your family? The highly skilled transgender Latina drone pilot or the muscular white nationalist Christian who can’t spell IQ, but can do 150 pushups? The Trump Administration has already made its choice. It has nothing to do with merit, as they disingenuously suggest, unless one considers a skin color, gender and a specific conservative religious affiliation merit-worthy factor.
Military desegregation in 1948 assured that the armed forces were one of our most respected, revered and successful institutions. The Trump administration seems hellbent on reversing this extraordinary progress while undermining America’s promise of equal opportunity that made us the most powerful military on earth.
Republican strategist and political consultant Rick Wilson wrote the 2018 book, Everything Trump Touches Dies. If Trump and Hegseth don’t stop their bigoted assault on the military, our esteemed armed forces may be the latest casualty.
