Conservatives are optimistic that Pete Hegseth will purge left-wing ideology from the military if confirmed as Secretary of Defense.
Hegseth — a veteran and Fox News host whom President-elect Donald Trump tapped to lead the Defense Department — is an outspoken critic of the Biden administration’s embrace of the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda. Hegseth is the author of a New York Times-bestselling book, “The War On Warriors,” which details the left-wing ideological capture of the military.
Hegseth explained how DEI weakens the military in an interview with Daily Wire host and editor emeritus Ben Shapiro.
“The Left knows that by pushing DEI, now they’ve got black soldiers looking at white soldiers and white soldiers looking at black soldiers wondering who really deserved what or why they’re in a position, which is really toxic for an organization primed on unity,” he said.
William Thibeau, the director of the Claremont Institute’s American Military Project and an Army Ranger veteran, is a vocal opponent of DEI in the military. He’s also optimistic that a Hegseth-led Pentagon could mark the end of the woke ideology’s presence in the armed services, which he says “break the fundamental integrity” of the military.
“If future-Secretary Hegseth’s public comments are any indication, he will restore accountability to the Pentagon with a ruthless push for accountability for uniformed officers who have broken the institution,” Thibeau told The Daily Wire. “He has a proper scope of the problem, and his independence is cause for optimism that he will not hold back in favor of potential future employment.”
He also called on Hegseth to completely root out the DEI agenda immediately upon becoming the Secretary of Defense. “The Hegseth-led Pentagon must take every step necessary to eliminate DEI on day one, without cause to think that the future will be any easier of a fight.”
Eliminating DEI in the military could prove difficult. An ongoing Daily Wire series documents how the Defense Department embraced and promulgated far-left ideology on race and gender, requesting nearly $270 million across three years to fund its DEI agenda.
Thibeau outlined exactly how he believes a Hegseth-led DOD could most effectively eliminate DEI from the armed services.
“Policies must be clear, bold, and simple. Instead of vague affirmations of the importance of merit, new Pentagon policy must comprehensively and explicitly outline the activities now forbidden,” Thibeau told The Daily Wire. “It’s not enough to leave up to a bureaucrat general’s interpretation of a statute. The new Pentagon must leave no room for doubt about policy actions.”
There are also a number of actions Thibeau says Trump’s Defense Department could take to purge the ideology from the military.
“Restore standards. Fix the Army fitness test, return to a professions-based assessment of qualifications without bias based on a person’s sex,” the Army Ranger veteran said before calling on the Trump administration to “end consideration of race and sex for military personnel and programs. The Pentagon should return to the Truman-era policy of racial integration when the Army would not even maintain a category for race in personnel files.”
“Fire senior officers who have embraced DEI as military policy, or spoken out for it. There must be accountability for senior leaders who have lost the trust of the American people,” Thibeau elaborated.
“Reform the Joint Staff. The Joint Staff is a military bureaucracy that obfuscates decision-making outside of political accountability,” Thibeau went on to say before explaining that staff should be moved to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, while remaining Joint Staff offices should be moved “close to the White House where they will execute their duly-assigned role of advise and consent.”
