There is a sublime irony to Pete Hegseth eliminating signs of historical and political figures whom he deems “DEI hires” when he is the most imcompetent person ever to hold the job he currently holds. His hire was made possible through MAGA, which desperately needs America to believe that white men are being discriminated against. That’s a core value of MAGA that the white man can’t get a break anymore and that jobs are just “given” to POCs and women who don’t deserve them in the slightest way. And these are all jobs that the white man should have. And jobs that the white man DID in fact have when women and POCs were barred from working in certain industries or being appointed to or elected to certain high posts.
As I’ve shared here before, I was a radio newscaster for a time starting in the late 70’s. A lot of broadcasting was finally opening up to women. I believe Oprah Winfrey had her first TV job in 1975. So the theory is that Oprah was “given” something, and that’s absurd considering that she’s a legitimate self-made billionaire, not a pretend one like Trump. She may have been *given* a foot in the door, a chance to interview, but once in the door she certainly figured out the business and rose to the top. And a lot of women besides Oprah, myself included, were perfectly capable of working in broadcasting, in any number of capacities, but we simply weren’t able to even apply prior to the 70’s.
And yes I know, there were a few token women here and there but not like it became in broadcasting or like it is nowadays in the field. We were lucky to be young and ambitious when a few doors opened to us, that had previously been closed. And at no time was there any anti-male sentiment. In those years I never heard a single woman, hired to do anything, saying, “Ha ha ha I beat some guy out of this job.” That’s right-wing paranoia. No, we were just wanting to work in broadcasting and had the ability to work in the field and grateful that we finally could.
And of course the sociological equations didn’t stop with just men, I recall hearing that white women were taking away jobs from Black men. Again, I never felt that way nor did any of the women I knew who were broadcasters (some of whom were Black or Hispanic) nor did anybody have that “design,” to “deprive” somebody else of a job. With that logic, any job you apply for, you’re depriving somebody else of when you get the job. Who can live with that whacky mentality?
In all events, you’re aware that Hegseth wants to rename the vessel christened after gay activist Harvey Milk. That’s just the awful beginning, according to Dan Rather.
Not many things you can take to the bank, but believe me — this reporter has, through many decades of employment, never felt discriminated against because I’m white. But to hear Donald Trump tell it, times have changed dramatically in America.
Trump insists that white American heterosexual men are now a persecuted group. It is his basic argument for vanquishing all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the federal government, and he has strong-armed public and private companies to go along with this charade.
One of Trump’s loyalist minions, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, is taking it a step further in this latest culture war battle. Hegseth has already deleted Pentagon webpages and erased photographs of prominent Black, Latino, and female members of the U.S. military. He has fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a Black four-star general, and the Commandant of the Coast Guard, a female admiral.
He is on a rampage to remove mention of anyone in the U.S. military who isn’t white, straight, and male. On Tuesday, Hegseth ordered the Navy to remove the name of the USNS Harvey Milk, a Navy support ship named for the political trailblazer and gay rights activist. The decision to make the announcement at the beginning of Pride Month was no accident.
Milk served in the Navy during the Korean War and was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1978. He was assassinated later that year by a political rival. The ship was named in his honor in 2016.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell tried to explain the rationale. “Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DoD installations and assets are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos,” he said.
Though the USNS Harvey Milk was the only ship mentioned, CBS News has obtained a list of other vessels in Hegseth’s crosshairs:
- USNS Cesar Chavez – named for a co-founder of the United Farm Workers union and civil rights activist
- USNS Medgar Evers – named for the civil rights activist assassinated by a white supremacist in 1963
- USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg – named for the second woman justice on the Supreme Court, who fought for gender equality and civil rights
- USNS Dolores Huerta – named for a co-founder of the United Farm Workers union
- USNS Thurgood Marshall – named for the first Black Supreme Court justice and a pioneering civil rights attorney
- USNS Lucy Stone – named for an abolitionist and suffragist who after became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree and fought for women’s rights
- USNS Harriet Tubman – named for an enslaved person who escaped to freedom and then became a conductor on the Underground Railroad and Union spy during the Civil War.
“Pete Hegseth, the least qualified secretary of defense in American history. And this is the guy leading the charge? It’s a joke. You’re not qualified for the job that you have. You didn’t get that job on merit,” said Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, in a news conference after the name removal announcement.
Hakeem is right. But right or wrong, it appears that the political dark ages are upon us. After the fall of Rome, Europe was plunged into darkness for the next 800 to 1,500 years, depending upon how you calculate that period. I’m not going to analogize how close to that period we’re going to get, or how long it’s going to last, but suffice it to say, we are moving backwards. Luckily, Trump is only one *president* and not the last in a succession of corrupt emperors. So his mark will be felt to some extent, but we don’t know exactly what at this point, just some four months in.
Hegseth may continue to rename vessels, buildings, forts, military installation, hell, maybe he’ll decide that the Pentagon is somehow a woke name and decide it’s really a hexagon or an octogon. Or, hey, I got it: a MAGAgon. This crowd is that crazy.
I don’t doubt for a minute that Dan Rather is right. What I’m doubting is how much outrage MAGA thinks it can do to cultural heroes, and certainly Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are two of those. At the very least, Hegseth is throwing gasoline on the cultural fire and that is not a wise move. Hegseth is the guy in the glass house throwing stones. And if he was spending more time working on learning his job, rather than building make up studios, worrying about leakers and renaming vessels, we would all be a lot better off.
Nazis are known for book burning, revisionist history, and not tolerating ANY TRUTH OR DISSENT. FACT. What’s new about that? Expect more of the same and WORSE. America…what the phuck is wrong with YOUR CITIZENS???
DEI is the new CRT
Also, the plural of POC is POC (not POCs) 🙂
SECDRUNK Hegseth is merely trying to re-create the Armed Forces of the Confederacy on his watch.