After right-wing Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol in January, their top TV pundit is furthering his attempt to destabilize support of the U.S. military.
Tucker Carlson, who has become the darling of white nationalists and QAnon backers, has lashed out at The Pentagon claiming it has been overtaken by ‘woke’ military officials who are more concerned with identity politics than they are with protecting the safety of the American people.
In the opening monologue of his right-wing show Friday, the conservative pundit claimed that a new ‘diversity and inclusion plan’ published by the Special Operations Command is evidence that the military has become preoccupied with gender, race, and sexuality.
‘If you’re wondering whether our military leadership has gone woke, consider that question settled for good. The Pentagon is now the Yale faculty lounge, but with cruise missiles,’ Carlson tartly stated.
Carlson also criticized President Biden’s newly appointed Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin.
Austin, who is black, recently stated he would ‘fight hard to stamp out sexual assault and to rid our ranks of racists and extremists’.
Carlson alleges that Austin never defined what he meant by ‘extremism’, meaning that it could be used as a way to silence conservatives.
Friday’s segment wasn’t the first time that Tucker Carlson has hit out at the ‘woke’ Pentagon.
Last week, the star railed against the promotion of two female generals that were becoming combat commanders and the recently updated guidelines for maternity flight suits and permissible hair styles.
General Jacqueline D. Van Ovost of the Air Force and Lt. General Laura J. Richardson of the Army were nominated to lead two of the military’s combatant commands.
‘So we’ve got new hairstyles and maternity flight suits. Pregnant women are going to fight our wars. It’s a mockery of the U.S. military,’ Carlson said.
For years, Carlson has used his program to flirt with fascist and white nationalist talking points.
In 2018, the host described racial demographic changes in a Pennsylvania town as “more change than human beings are designed to digest” after noting that the area is majority Hispanic.
He also accused immigrants of making the U.S. “dirtier,” “poorer,” and “more divided”; claimed that a “flood of illegal workers into the United States has damaged our communities, ruined our schools, burdened our health care system, and fractured our national unity”; and falsely asserted that the Potomac River is becoming “dirtier and dirtier” due to immigrants.
The American military is a central element of U.S. power and history, and remains the country’s most trusted institution.
But radical conservatives, like Carlson, hope to destabilize institutions like the military in an attempt to prevent diversity and force conflict.
Many experts believe the right-wing attack on the U.S. Capitol earlier this year was just the beginning of efforts to force violent opposition to Democrats and progressive progress.