Understanding the military’s attack on Tucker Carlson

The U.S. military is pushing woke, “social justice” leftism. Given the importance of this push, its otherwise bizarre attack on Tucker Carlson is not difficult to understand.

Let’s step back for a moment. The left has been marching through America’s institutions for decades. The media was in the vanguard. Universities were captured easily. Corporations fell without much resistance.

The military is a tougher nut to crack, but its leaders are drawn from a pool not that different from those who run universities and corporations, and these leaders crave approval from the same elites. Universities sometimes select presidents from the military brass. Ex-generals run the University of South Carolina and Kansas State. Until recently, an ex-admiral ran the University of Texas. There is no disconnect.

There’s real disconnect, though, between enlisted men and women and college students. Almost by definition, the former group is much more patriotic than the latter. Significant differences exist between the two cohorts when it comes to class, income level, upbringing, and geographical home. Members of the two groups aren’t seeking approval from the same kinds of people.

Such differences also exist to some extent when you compare enrollees at service academies with college students. But these lesser differences can be washed away to a considerable degree during college and, thereafter, during the process of climbing the ranks of the military.

Ideological differences between enlisted men and women and college grads are far more difficult to wash away. They can be minimized only through the indoctrination by the military of its active duty service men and women. This is what the military is attempting.

And for good reason. There are limits to how far leftward our elites can push this country without buy-in, or at least acquiescence, from the military. And the military is limited in this regard by the extent to which those who fill its ranks buy in or at at least acquiesce.

The woke left can never firmly control America if there is a disconnect between its agenda and that of the military. It can never confidently control America if there is a disconnect between its agenda and the views and attitudes of the military rank-and-file.

Hence, the imperative that the rank-and-file be made woke through indoctrination and, if necessary, purging. Hence, the indoctrination.

The attacks on Tucker Carlson demonstrate both the great importance and the perils of the military’s wokeness program. The peril stems from the fact that the military holds itself out as apolitical. If it is seen to take sides prematurely in America’s culture wars, its cover is blown. But that peril is negated if no one points out that the military is taking sides.

Carlson is pointing it out, and to a very big audience. Thus, the military must take him on.

Ordinarily, the spectacle of the U.S. military going after a TV talk show host would not compute. In fact, it is unprecedented. But in this case, it makes perfect sense.

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