Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has tattoos all over his body — including a Jerusalem cross and the phrase Deus Vult (“God wills it”). Tattoos tell us a story about a person’s life and beliefs.
“God wills it” was a battle cry of Christian crusaders during the Middle Ages. Today it is used by violent right-wing extremist groups and other hate organizations – including those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The commanders of Hegseth’s D.C. National Guard unit deemed his tattoos to be a security risk — citing concerns about “insider threats” — and he was not allowed to work the security detail for President Biden’s 2021 inauguration.
Hegseth has defended his tattoos as expressions of his deeply held Christian faith. He claimed that he was persecuted for his religion and outspoken “conservative” beliefs. Yet, under current regulations, such tattoos could disqualify recruits and subject active-duty personnel to discipline.
Hegseth now oversees the United States military — one of the largest and most diverse organizations in the country, if not the world. He has made it his personal crusade to restore “warrior culture” by stomping out “woke” values, “diversity,” “DEI,” and “political correctness” in the military.
What Hegseth is really eradicating is the principle that the military should reflect and serve all Americans. His “warrior culture” is a mask for a 21st-century Jim Crow — one that uses colorblind language like “merit” and “fairness” to do the work of racism and other forms of prejudice, bigotry and intolerance.
Military service is about much more than a uniform. It is a claim on citizenship, national belonging, and who counts as a “real American” and a patriot.
And it mirrors the Trump administration’s larger authoritarian project: a version of American history, national greatness and daily life where white men are the only agents who really matter.
Black and brown people, women, LGBTQ people, and other marginalized communities are pushed aside — cast as supporting players, villains or erased entirely.
Military service is about much more than a uniform. It is a claim on citizenship, national belonging, and who counts as a “real American” and a patriot.
As Frederick Douglass observed during the Civil War, “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.”
Trump, Hegseth, Stephen Miller and the other architects of the MAGA movement know this is true, which is why they’re pushing back so hard.
Hegseth has called the phrase “diversity is our strength” the “single dumbest phrase in military history.” Black History Month and other celebrations of America’s racial and ethnic diversity are, in his vision, dead.
Hegseth has been accused of advancing a militant version of White Christian nationalism and is working to infuse its values throughout the military. He has repeatedly framed America’s war against Iran—a Muslim nation—as a holy war and religious crusade.
“His vision, stated repeatedly in media briefings and other public remarks, is seen by many as a form of Christian nationalism, an ideology that seeks to fuse American identity and government with a specific, conservative form of Christianity,” Anna Mulrine and Sophie Hills wrote in the Christian Science Monitor.
Hegseth is orchestrating a purge of senior Black, brown and women officers. Most notably, he fired General Charles Q. Brown, the military’s highest-ranking Black officer. He also removed Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to hold that most senior position in U.S. Navy history.
These moves reflect the paranoia, male victimhood, and aggrieved entitlement animating the larger Trump-MAGA political and social project. The logic is simple: Black and brown people and women are presumed unqualified until proven otherwise, despite their accomplishments. White men, no matter how unqualified or mediocre, are assumed to be the best and most qualified, even despite evidence to the contrary.
In an almost perfect distillation of these dynamics, military experts and other observers have concluded that Pete Hegseth is the least qualified Secretary of Defense in the 79-year history of the position.
Fred Kaplan, writing in Slate, named this dynamic precisely: Hegseth “follows a policy of negative action.” But as Kaplan noted, “It is extremely doubtful that the Air Force or the Navy would fill such vital and difficult command slots on the basis of racial or gender quotas.” The reality: the officers Hegseth removed or blocked — Brown, Franchetti, and nearly three dozen others — had no performance issues.
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The Pentagon is enacting an Orwellian whitewashing campaign to remove books, photos, descriptions, names and other historically significant information about non-white, women and other minority groups in the military.
The scale is staggering. The digital purge — which includes references to Black History Month, Women’s History Month, the Navajo Code Talkers, the 442nd Infantry Regiment, General Colin Powell and Jackie Robinson — has removed an estimated 26,000 to 100,000 pages and posts from Department of Defense and Arlington National Cemetery websites.
Military service, which historically has guaranteed some rights and national belonging, now offers little protection against the administration’s vast cruelty.
Combat veterans and decorated service members have been swept up in the mass deportations. Their families are being targeted as well.
Hundreds of Afghan nationals who helped the American military in the War on Terror are also facing deportation despite promises of safety. They and their families are likely to be killed by the Taliban. This is a profound betrayal of America’s honor and word.
Transgender service members have been discharged or forced into early retirement, stripped of their full pensions and earned benefits.
Thus, the question that increasingly haunts Black and brown Americans, women, LGBTQ people and members of other marginalized communities. Should they stay in a military that, under Hegseth and Trump, no longer values and respects them?
Loving a country that does not love you back is an old and vexing question for Black and brown Americans. Now, women, immigrants, LGBTQ people, Muslims and other marginalized communities are forced to confront it in ways many of them likely never imagined. In the Age of Trump — especially his return — that question rings louder, loaded heavier with new dread. It is here and getting much worse.
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