The Left has nearly dismantled the U.S. military from the inside.
The core values that once made our armed forces feared and respected—merit, masculinity, patriotism, and readiness—are being eroded and replaced with racial quotas, a focus on femininity, disdain for America, and the divisive ideologies of DEI and critical race theory.
However, it’s not too late to restore the military’s strength and purpose. The first step is to understand how this “woke” transformation happened and identify the leaders who permitted—or even promoted—it.
Former Army Ranger and current scholar at @ClaremontInst ‘s Center for the American Way of Life, @WilliamThibeau, discusses the solutions and more in this riveting interview:
The Left has nearly dismantled the U.S. military from the inside.
The core values that once made our armed forces feared and respected—merit, masculinity, patriotism, and readiness—are being eroded and replaced with racial quotas, a focus on femininity, disdain for America, and… pic.twitter.com/WzEwYHruDG
— Tom Klingenstein (@TomKlingenstein) January 10, 2025
By RCP Video
William Thibeau, the Director of the American Military Project at the Claremont Center for the American Way of Life, speaks with Tom Klingenstein about how “woke” racial quotas and gender ideology are harming military readiness and unit cohesion. He also offers some pieces of advice for Donald Trump, including to stop categorizing members of the military by race.
Klingenstein asked: “The basic claim of the military is that diversity improves readiness. You wrote an article in The American Mind that debunked this claim.
One of the claims was that we need Black officers so Black enlisted men have role models. Does that sound reasonable to you?”
“It sounds reasonable under the current DEI regime,” Thibeau said.
“But there’s nothing more pernicious to unit cohesion in the military than telling a young black enlisted infantryman that the only way he can have a mentor in the military is if that mentor is the same skin color.”
Is there any evidence that diversity improves readiness? “No,” Thibeau said. “In a September 2023 hearing, the senior-most personnel officers in every branch were asked for any evidence, and none of them could produce a single study or evidence to that end.”
“From 2008 to 2014, a number of studies were published by legitimate institutions like the RAND Corporation that said clearly gender-integrated units are less lethal and effective than gender-segregated units. Conveniently, though. we’ve stopped asking the question, so we don’t have much recent evidence about it.”
“The military is seen by the left as a tool for their social outcomes. It is not enough to have a military that looks a certain way based on skin color. You must control what people think and say, and that’s a really scary thought.”
“Lisa Franchetti, the Chief of Naval Operations, was explicitly selected because she’s a woman. This is not hidden. This is not subtle. The Democrats, at least until now, have been very explicit about their desire to mold the military in their progressive leftist image of our nation,” he said.
“For example, at West Point, you can get a degree in Diversity and Inclusion Studies with your commission into the Army as an officer… There’s no degree in Diversity and Inclusion Studies at Harvard.”
“The military has one of the biggest school districts in the nation, if not the biggest. Active-duty families send their kids to the Department of Education and DOD schools — federal schools. It’s where the federal government has direct control over curriculum and teaching. There’s no state school board in the middle.”
“I don’t think there are that many transgender service members. But what’s troubling is the extent to which the establishment Pentagon will go to defend transgender service members. They don’t meaningfully contribute to our national security by quantity or quality, but there is this organizational devotion to ensure that the taxpayers pay for it,” he said.
“You can understand who’s woke by the extent to which they, in or out of uniform, are willing to politicize their service,” he continued. “Are you willing to make social media posts denigrating Christian Americans, as Army General Andy Sas has? Are you, like Navy Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, willing to say that military officers should be skeptical of laws passed by Congress because so many elected representatives are white men? These are just two of the worst, but I think those are such absurd examples that they should not be allowed to serve further.”
His recommendations for Donald Trump:
- “End race-based quotas, don’t even ask the question on personnel files.
- Be like President Truman, who didn’t allow race to be a category in personnel files.
- Restore standards to the means by which we choose who’s best — not minimum baselines.
- Hold generals and admirals accountable who’ve been part of this.
- And fourth, reform the institutions of the military.
- Overhaul West Point, fix the joint staff, make it smaller, move it next to the White House, and get it out of the Pentagon decision-making process.
- Trump could make those decisions in an hour.”
“We know the greatest reason veterans’ families don’t want their kids to join—veterans’ families account for over 81% of the armed forces—is because of politicized military leaders. The biggest reason why they don’t want their kids to join is they don’t trust that their senior leaders are going to have their best interest in mind in combat, and that trust is broken. You have to reestablish that trust by putting in no-nonsense warfighters in those positions who aren’t going to cater to socially correct garbage.”
“We need leaders who are courageous enough to stand up to the system and say, ‘No more.’ We need policymakers who will push back against the entrenched bureaucracy and prioritize the military’s core mission: to defend this country effectively. And we need the American people to hold their leaders accountable. This isn’t a fight we can afford to lose,” he said.
“The military is resilient, and the American spirit is strong. If we act now, with determination and purpose, we can restore the armed forces to what they should be—a fighting force focused solely on readiness, merit, and the defense of this great nation.”
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