Hegseth Blocks Promotions of Women and Black Men to Admiral

He will only promote White loyalists

Photo by Luemen Rutkowski on Unsplash

I’m going to quietly gloss over the fact that Trump has disappeared again. He hasn’t been seen in public for about six days, or, since his third annual physical in 13 months. Medical doctors are saying that whatever monthly treatments he is receiving are obviously becoming harder and harder for him to bounce back from.

Nope, today we are going to talk about our illustrious (she said sarcastically) Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth who is once more gutting military leadership of women and Black men.

This time it’s the Navy. Petey was presented with a list of 22 nominees for promotion to one star admiral rank. Getting on to that list is incredibly difficult. Officers eligible for promotion to one star admiral rank are reviewed by a board of Navy admirals. Out of the hundreds who are eligible, only 5% make the list.

So, clearly, these officers are the crème de la crème. The best of the best. The ones you want leading our Navy. After the admirals have come up with their list, that list is presented to the Secretary of Defense for approval.

Normally … and we know that nothing is normal in the Trump administration … the Secretary of Defense approves the list and the officers are promoted. A defense secretary can strike a name off the list for “moral, mental, physical or professional failings that raise questions about the officers’ fitness to lead.”

But you would think that the board of admirals would have that information already and the officer would never have made the list in the first place, right? The thing with the defense secretary is purely a formality.

Not anymore. Petey removed three women and two Black men from the list and refuses to say why except that he is correcting for years of “gender and demographic engineering.”

Gender and demographic engineering of what? 21% of active duty Navy is female and 38% of active duty Navy identify as a racial minority. With that many women and people of color serving, it’s seems pretty damn normal to me that eventually those women and minorities will qualify for promotion to senior command.

But Petey keeps removing them. Blocking their promotions or outright firing them. To date, he has fired about three dozen senior commanders, 60% of whom were women or Black. Women and minorities currently account for less than 20% of generals and admirals.

20%. When your armed forces are almost half women and minorities. Promoting those women and minorities isn’t DEI. It’s making sure that the commanders look like the troops they are leading.

But in Petey’s world, leaders should only be White men, regardless of who they are commanding.

And here’s the problem with that. Women and minorities aren’t the only ones that Petey is firing or removing from promotion lists. There are White men too. White men who are only loyal to the Constitution that they swore an oath to.

Petey is keeping and promoting only white male officers who are loyal to him and Trump.

Trump, who is becoming increasingly unhinged as his dementia advances and his health deteriorates faster and faster. Trump, who openly talks about obliterating entire civilizations.

Are you one of those people who is confident that our military will prevent Trump from launching nuclear weapons? If you are, you might want to rethink that. Remember, Petey has been loading military leadership with Trump loyalists much like Mitch McConnel loaded the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court with Trump loyalists.

We are getting to the point where there is literally no one to stop Trump’s worst impulses.