By CASEY HARPER | THE CENTER SQUARE
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Defense, though not yet confirmed, has pledged to root out “woke” ideology in the military.
Other Republicans have lamented the same issue for years but done little about it, but if Peter Hegseth can be confirmed, the U.S. military may become ground zero in the Right’s war on woke.
Military veteran and Fox News Host Hegseth has repeatedly attacked the military leadership’s embrace of “woke” culture, which usually refers to the ideology around transgenderism, gender pronouns, and racial identity politics.
Despite allegations and attempts to end his bid, Hegseth has stood firm, though his fate in the Senate is unclear. A public statement from Trump last week put to rest any thoughts that Trump was considering withdrawing the pick.
“Pete is a WINNER, and there is nothing that can be done to change that!!!” Trump said in a statement.
The American Accountability Foundation released a list of 20 officers who Hegseth should fire.
Notably, during his viral podcast interview with Joe Rogan, Trump told a story about how military leaders in Washington, D.C. told Trump that destroying ISIS quickly wasn’t possible, but when Trump visited the military leaders on the ground, he heard a different story. Those commanders, Trump said, told him it was doable but Washington, D.C. had tied their hands.
“The woke takeover of the military is a major threat to our national security,” AAF President Thomas Jones wrote in a letter to Hegseth earlier this week.
“As global tensions rise, with Iran on the march, Russia at war, and China in the midst of a massive military buildup, we cannot afford to have a military distracted and demoralized by leftist ideology,” he added in the letter, first obtained by The New York Post. “Those who were responsible for these policies being instituted in the first place must be dismissed.”
That anecdote highlights growing sentiment on the Right that the effectiveness and mission of the military has been hijacked by a handful of leaders in the Pentagon.
Lawmakers have raised that concern for years, pointing to a slew of recent federal spending backing controversial Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies.
Last year, Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. State Department, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told The Center Square that woke policies were “hollowing out” our military.
A Department of Defense comptroller report from the same year included $86.5 million for “dedicated diversity and inclusion activities” as well as language showing the importance of DEI to the military.
“The Department will lead with our values – building diversity, equity, and inclusion into everything we do,” the report said.
The actual figure spent on backing the same kind of policies is likely much larger and impossible to know, as the language and ideology has permeated much of the employee training, H.R. policies, and more.
Other anecdotes highlight the prevalence of the newfound way of thinking for Armed Forces. For instance, as The Center Square previously reported, official training materials for West Point cadets included warnings about white privilege.
Rubio released a report detailing these same issues, which includes another example where a slide presentation for the Air Force Academy was titled, “Diversity & Inclusion: What it is, why we care, & what we can do.”
This same taxpayer-funded training warns cadets to avoid saying words like “mom” and “dad” because the language is gendered.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., spoke about the NDAA and blamed woke policies for the armed forces’ difficulties meeting recruiting goals. Even after lowering recruitment targets, the U.S. military has fallen short of its recruitment goals in recent years.
“We’ve seen under the last three and a half years of the Biden-Harris administration, it’s been hard to recruit and keep good service members, in part because of the bad woke policies, the loss of focus by this administration on what the mission is,” Scalise said at a news conference Tuesday.
With Trump and Hegseth in the executive branch and leadership like Scalise behind it, cleaning house of the Pentagon might be possible, albeit difficult.
“We start addressing that by routing out more of the woke policies over at the DOD,” Scalise continued. “Of course, that ultimately is going to get fixed when President Trump takes office next month. He talked about those things during the campaign, what he would do to restrengthen and reinvigorate our military.”
If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Hegseth would lead the largest and most complex federal agency with an annual budget of $840 billion and 3.4 million military and civilian employees.
Hegseth, 44, was an infantry officer in the Army National Guard from 2002 to 2021. He graduated from Princeton University in 2003. He was later commissioned as an infantry officer in the Army National Guard. He served in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay. He left with the rank of major, according to the Army National Guard. Hegseth earned two Bronze Stars, two Army Commendation Medals and the National Defense Service Medal with Bronze Service Star, among others.
But Hegseth faces scrutiny over a 2017 sexual encounter in which a woman told police the former Fox News anchor blocked the door of a hotel room in California and sexually assaulted her. Hegseth has denied the allegation and said that the encounter was consensual. The woman reported the allegations to local police. Hegseth was never charged with a crime. He reached an undisclosed settlement with the woman in 2023.
I cant make up my mind whether Pete has harmed anyone until he is tried by a jury of his peers… “The View” (and Greg) with Lisa and Christine Blousey-Ford backing up her vote.
I cant think of anyone more appropriate to straighten out the s**tshow mockery of the military Joe and his DEI hire Lloyd Austin have taken.
Root it out. Root it out NOW. DEI and ALL of this divisive dribble needs to be gone. The military has one purpose: to blow things up and kill people. Anything else is secondary. This distracting woke ideology shouldn’t even be on the list.
He’s already doing a 180 on gays in the military and women in combat. What else is he compromising on? Lol, you fools are willing to put so much into the defense of this moral degenerate.
So gays in the military was a mistake? Women in combat was a mistake? Having served over 20 years, I can assure you that both groups have served with honor and distinction. Have there been problems? Certainly! But any group in the military has its incompetent and lazy component. It would be a travesty to boot out otherwise effective and competent personnel just because they don’t fit the description of what MAGA thinks every military person should be.
You want to hollow out the military? Purge away…
The inevitable outcome of wokeism is to elevate the bad, and cut down the good. DIE hiring is nothing more than lowering standards in order to look like you are correcting some injustice. And, in the process, multiple injustices are created.
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Yes, there was a time in this country when “blacks need not apply” was common. Hiring blacks exclusively while ignoring better qualified whites does not erase the injustice. It actually creates a worse injustice because the person pushing it should know better.
Woke is not ideology, it is about being truthful and addressing past inequities in our history. Turning our military into a Christian crusade is not in our best interests
While that may be true in theory, in reality, it is absolute BS.
What, exactly do you mean by addressing past inequities? Blacks were enslaved in the US until the civil war. Do we now enslave whites to make up for that past inequity? That is exactly what repartitions are.
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No, creating a second inequity to make up for the first is just as evil as the first one was. In fact, it is more evil because the “woke” people should know better.
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Woke, when it means awareness of history, and the things that were done wrong, is one thing. What “woke” is demanding of society is nothing but doubling down on the past evils, by repeating them.
well said
Turning our military into a Christian Crusade would absolutely be in our best interests. Our military, instead of being laughed at and ridiculed as it is now, would be feared and respected, which is exactly what we need in a military. Not a gigantic taxpayer funded safe space.
Frank.
If one spends their entire life trying to punish the current population for problems of the past, they lose their ability to cultivate happiness within their own lifes.
There is a lot of past traumas to fight against, so many in fact that someone could be occupied 24/7.
Is that freedom?
The inability for the woke to forgive only keeps them enslaved to drama that has been internalized.
To be woke means that everyone else is perceived as a threat or is guilty of something that requires retribution. Ultimately making the wokester an agent of activism that turns everything into a strawman to fight against.
In order to end the cycles of trauma and conflict, the greatest enemy one must face is within.
When a wokester uses all their resources in fighting some battle outside themselves, they fail to do the inner work which results in an inner manifestation of hate which is them project onto others who have nothing to do with their perceived problems.
This constant battle against perceived oppression keeps the mind enslaved and unable to see the world for that it truly is.
Beautiful and full of love.
Time could be much better spent getting out and providing service to the community.
Break free.
Woke is not ideology, it is about being truthful and addressing past inequities in our history. Turning our military into a Christian crusade is not in our best interests
You cannot adjust history. You may not want to repeat certain bits were you ever in a position of similar authority but you can’t decide which parts don’t meet your standards and then determine that someone needs to fix it. That past is the past.
For thousands of years the world functioned well in a conquer and assimilate manner. Now we have a mushy approach toward others and the end result is a protracted harmony, much as your comment suggests now.
Yeah!!! Go for it!
It’s absurd that we even need to have this discussion. Wokeness and inclusivity have turned or military into the laughing stock of the world. Can anyone imagine how hard Russian and Chinese soldiers are laughing when they see the “Emma has two moms” recruitment video?? Pathetic.
There’s freaks over there too. They just don’t parade them around on their version of Stars and Stripes.
Pete Hegseth has an almost insurmountable task of exorcising the Pentagon and the services from the ‘woke’ culture that has been infused throughout. The service academies are filling our cadets and midshipmen with CRT and similar nonsense. All this must be reversed. The good news is that the ‘Trump effect’ is already stirring warrior instincts. Recruitment is edging upward.
Hegseth is precisely the man for the job. He has been in the trenches in combat as a junior officer, he is highly educated and is not one of the ‘TV generals’ that Trump rails against. Pete will be confirmed and they will be gone!
So West Point is training cadets about their “white privilege”? But can they fire three rounds into a four-inch circle at 100 yards? Or is that less important now in our army than putting social justice poison into the curriculum?
Less important. Todays Officers typically don’t have to fire their weapons as a sharp shooter. Not yet anyway. That’s for boot camp grunts.
I agree with the majority of Pete’s plan to end Military woke. Having 20 years under my belt, I can say gays have always served well, did their job. Trans issues were not an issue then and shouldn’t be an issue now. You do the job, surgery and hormones can wait until you are out of service, otherwise it’s a distraction. I’m all for selective service for male as well as female, doesn’t mean women should be in combat. Everyone can contribute in some way. But physical strength determines the job and only a very small group of women could ever do what men can do.
Eliminating woke? Pete will drink to that!
Lol. I see him in an odd kind of drinking game.
I saw that USAF General who said they have too many white male pilots. And not enough people are joining, in spite of lowered standards (or because?). And Admiral Kirby said the Afghan “withdrawal” was a success. When’s the last time we won a war? And I saw the recruiting ad about two mommies. Then I saw some sloppy- looking soldiers on the White House lawn (part of the Old Guard?). And I wondered what happened to the army? And I remembered guys used to join because it was a manly thing, and a rite of passage. And the youths most likely to join came from those whose ancestors fought the U.S. army- namely the southern whites and the native Americans. Maybe those are not their target recruits any more. I don’t know.
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