“We will spend as many hours as it takes to de-wokeify the military”

Rep. Matt Gaetz won’t back down on pushing back on the CRT/DEI/Woke ideology infecting the military:

TRANSCRIPT

“The gentlelady who spoke on the other side of the aisle said that Critical Race Theory had been politically weaponized and I could not agree more. It has been politically weaponized by the Left against people when you explain as the central premise of Critical Race Theory that people are captive to their immutable traits. And to suggest that it is insulting to the military to not subject them to this, no!

What’s insulting to the military is to sit people down and tell them that by virtue of their skin color they are inherently oppressed or an oppressor and that that is inescapable.

That is considerably more offensive than an amendment to talk about whether or not this is the right and just thing for the Department of Defense to be engaged in.

I would further observe that the way Critical Race Theory is presented is not like an understanding of history–that would still be fully allowed under any of the Amendments that are being considered today. It’s just that we don’t tell people that they they are locked in to this future because it’s fundamentally Un-American.

And to my colleagues questions about whether or not I intend to use this hearing to go after the diversity equity and inclusion initiatives and the critical race theory in the military–the answer to that question is unequivocally yes!

We will spend as many hours as it takes to de-woke-ify this military.

It’s not an effort to dominate the time. Like the criticism that because I’ve offered these amendments we’re dominating the time of the House Armed Services Committee is so stark when laid in contrast to the time that is dominated in training that we’re simply trying to learn about to push ideas and ideologies that are radical and un-American.

So yes, we’re going to be going after DEI and we’re going to be going after Critical Race Theory. I think that’s what our military deserves.

It’s not divisive for us to do that. What was divisive was to use prior National Defense authorizations act to establish these programs!

Like in all these hearings where we drag the top brass of the military in and ask them questions. The easiest response for any of them to us when we point out these bad things that they’re doing is to say look you all demanded it in National Defense Authorization Acts. You told us we had to have a five-year plan.

So I view this not as a wedge issue, not as divisive but as remedial. We have to go and remediate the bad things that have happened as a consequence of this embrace of radical gender ideology and radical race ideology.

A point my colleague Mr. Waltz always makes in these discussions: Republicans don’t obsess about these things because we’re so eager to chat about them.

These things get brought to us by our constituents and by people who are wearing the uniform!

I am struck by one particular case in my district where a majority minority unit had their leadership come to me and say the most dangerous thing they they had to deal with at times, in terms of mental health and unit cohesion, wasn’t the adversary– it was the Stand Down ordered by Secretary Austin.

The whole premise of their training was that they had a common experience, they had gone through something together, they were a unified collective force and then when these people get told oh well you know your your teammate over here is so different and we have to obsess about those differences rather than our commonality.

They get frustrated with that and they bring those materials to us.

One reason a report is so necessary is because even when we add General Milley here before us and Mr. Waltz asked him questions about some of this pedagogy and training that was going on, he said it doesn’t exist–totally fiction, we were imagining these things, it was a Critical Race Theory Mirage that we had observed.

Of course Mr Waltz brought the receipts and showed these generals over and over again the materials that our constituents bring to us to fight for them. That is what we intend to do and that is what this series of amendments will accomplish.