Pete Hegseth Fired US Army Chief Of Staff Because He Wants To Be Racist In Peace

In today’s episode of Nah, But Seriously, The Trump Administration Is A White Supremacist Organization, Secretary of Defense — or War, or whatever — Pete Hegseth is still on his mission to de-woke the U.S. military, and, apparently, that means blocking Black people and women from getting promotions and firing the Army’s chief of staff for daring to question him about it.

NBC News reported Thursday that Hegseth has taken steps to block or delay promotions for more than a dozen Black and female senior officers across all four branches of the military, and according to nine — yes, nine —  U.S. officials familiar with the process, they’re being targeted because of their race, gender, or association with former President Joe Biden.

From NBC:

The process within the Army, the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines is structured to ensure the most qualified officers get promoted. Hegseth’s decision to intervene in the process has raised concerns among some officials within those military branches and the White House, the nine U.S. officials familiar with the situation said.

“There is not a single service that has been immune to this level of involvement by Hegseth,” one of the U.S. officials said.

Two of the officials said there are concerns in the military and the White House specifically that Hegseth is blocking or stalling some qualified officers from receiving promotions through the ranks of general and admiral because of their race or gender as he targets diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at the Pentagon. There is also concern that Hegseth could be singling out military officers whom he views as aligned with officials or policies of the Biden administration, the officials said.

Mind you, when President Donald Trump nominated Hegseth — a former Fox News pundit who was in the Army National Guard — to serve as defense secretary, he nominated him to replace Lloyd Austin, the nation’s first Black defense secretary, who happens to be a four-star general, who, during his 41-year military career, also served as director of the Joint Staff, was commanding general of U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq, and headed U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM).

So, a white man, who is the least qualified defense secretary we’ve likely ever had, is denying promotions to Black and female military personnel, who also likely have far more military experience than he has, because the most woefully incompetent and inexperienced president in any of our lifetimes tapped him to replace a highly decorated Black officer. This is both a picture-perfect example of this administration’s racism, and the perfect metaphor for what white conservatives think DEI is vs. what it actually is.

Also, mind you, it is not the Secretary of Defense’s job to be part of the military promotions process, and even if they did, Hegseth reportedly had no reason to remove any of his Black and female targets from consideration.

More from NBC:

Defense secretaries typically do not remove officers from promotion lists or reject individual recommendations from the service branches, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the process.

By law the president has the most authority to block a military promotion, either an individual recommendation or a name on a list. If a recommended promotion is pulled before it is transmitted to the White House, a reason must be provided, such as an ongoing investigation or an allegation about an officer’s conduct, and the defense secretary typically does not make those decisions. Candidates for promotion have been removed in the past if there were allegations against them or military investigations into them. The people removed from promotion lists did not have open investigations against them, U.S. officials said.

So, what happens when one of these top military leaders actually challenges Hegseth on what appears to be a Jim Crow-women’s suffrage mashup approach to deciding who becomes a one-star general? Well, they get fired, like Gen. Randy George, the Army’s now-former chief of staff.

A Pentagon official told CNN that Hegseth instructed George to retire immediately on Thursday, and also fired two other Army generals, the chief of chaplains, Maj. Gen. William Green Jr., and the commander of Army Transformation and Training Command, Gen. David Hodne. (Does the commander-in-leaked-Signal-chat-war-plans realize the U.S. is currently in the middle of a war in Iran, or nah?)

According to NBC, George, whose term was expected to be four years ending in September 2027, recently requested a meeting with Hegseth to discuss his blocking of promotions for some Army officers, which seemed to focus on women and Black men, but Hegseth refused to meet or discuss his decisions, two additional U.S. officials told the outlet.

It’s worth noting that, according to a New York Times report, Hegseth’s chief of staff, Ricky Buria, denounced the selection of a Black woman, Maj. Gen. Antoinette R. Gant — a combat engineer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan — to take command of the Military District of Washington, claiming Trump would not want to be seen with a Black female officer at military events.

Oh, no — our president isn’t racist, too, is he?

Look, some of Hegseth’s first orders of business after becoming defense secretary were restoring Confederate names to military bases and banning trans people and anything he even perceives as DEI from the military. Since then, he has promoted a video of a pastor who says women shouldn’t have the right to vote, restored honors for U.S. soldiers who committed the violent, one-sided massacre and genocidal atrocity known as the “battle” of  Wounded Knee, and sought to end the military’s ties with Scouting America, formerly the Boy Scouts, because it allows in girls now, which, in his mind, constitutes an “attack boy-friendly spaces.”

So, yeah — we know he’s a racist, misogynistic bigot, and we know that made him a perfect fit for this administration.

It was never about merit, and his blocking of Black people and women from being promoted only serves as more evidence of what we already knew.

SEE ALSO:

White House’s Passive-Aggressive Response To ‘SNL’ Skit

Pete Hegseth Wants The Military To Cut Ties With The Boy Scouts Because Of ‘Gender Confusion,’Or Whatever

Hegseth: Restore Confederate Military Base Names ‘Honors’

Pete Hegseth Exposes GOP’s Double Standard On DEI

Pete Hegseth Announces Soldiers Who Committed Wounded Knee Massacre Will Keep Medals Of Honor