Matt Rosendale writes for the Federalist about fighting rot within the American military.
Our institutions aren’t what they once were. Opinion polls show overwhelmingly that trust in the government, in Congress, and in business has fallen in previous years and remains low. One exception, however, is the military, which is consistently among our most respected institutions. This reputation has been hard-won, over decades of apolitical service to the nation. Americans recognize that service by honoring our servicemen and women and extending our armed forces enormous respect and deference.
Yet that legacy is now under attack. Our servicemen and women are the same selfless servants of our American republic that they have always been, but there is a growing movement among the climbers and the bureaucrats at the Department of Defense to turn the military into a tool of left-wing ideology.
Leftists have completed their long march through the universities, large corporations, and our primary and secondary education systems. They see the military as one of the last bastions to storm in order to make their cultural control over our society complete.
The sad thing is that the military is strong because it is apolitical. Republicans, Democrats, and everyone in between recognize that its values are patriotism and its loyalty is to our Constitution. The moment these far-leftists are successful, they will destroy that respect, and with it, our ability to fight and win wars. So, while it gives me no pleasure, last week I and 29 colleagues felt that someone had to act before the hard left’s plans came to fruition without official objection.
What are these plans? The first step is to replace fidelity to the U.S. Constitution with fidelity to the grievances inherent to identity politics. It goes under the name of critical race theory, but what it really is about is destroying the commonalities that allow us to put America first in our hearts and race and ethnicity a distant second.
