During a House hearing on Tuesday with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) made a fool of himself by suggesting that the Defense Department is wasting taxpayer money on teaching “socialism” and diversity to U.S. troops.
When Gaetz made the bogus socialism claim, Austin immediately pushed back, remarking:
“Well, I certainly don’t agree with embracing socialism.”
Rather than let the Defense Secretary finish his remarks, Gaetz interrupted and went off on a rambling, fact-free rant:
“My follow-up question, if we don’t embrace it, why did the National Defense University put out a statement saying in this talk he will argue that the right answer lies in ending Western arrogance and promoting a new egalitarian horizon on a global scale, a new form of ecological and post-colonial socialism? So why would we invite people we don’t agree with to evangelize views and values that we don’t share at the National Defense University when we should be learning strategy about how to combat our enemies and make assessments that are accurate?”
Austin attempted to explain that the military often studies possible new strategies and better ways to prepare members of the armed forces, but yet again Gaetz refused to let Austin finish his remarks:
“Mr. Secretary, I’ve shared with you the context. The context wasn’t to better understand socialism so we can defeat it, the context wasn’t learn about it so that we can offer countermeasures. The concept was that it’s time for socialism, and the reason I know that’s the context is because the lecture was pulled from a book written entitled Time for Socialism.”
When Austin tried to get more information about what Gaetz was referring to, the congressman refused to let him speak:
“I control the time. You guys have been blowing a lot of calls lately on matters of strategy, Mr. Secretary. You guys told us that Russia couldn’t lose, that the Taliban couldn’t immediately win. I guess I’m wondering, what about the $773 billion that you’re requesting today is going to help you make assessments that are accurate in the face of so many blown calls?”
The Defense chief did manage to get a barb in at Gaetz, telling him:
“The fact that you’re embarrassed by your country. That’s what you’re saying.”
That led Gaetz to accuse Austin of being too interested in diversity:
“Maybe we would be better at home if the National Defense University actually worked a little more on strategy and a little less on woke-ism. That was baked into your flawed assessment. I saw that the Obama administration tried to starve our military and it seems the Biden administration is trying to starve our military by force-feeding it woke-ism.”
“Woke-ism” is not a thing. It’s a buzzword created by right-wingers who are looking for ways to attack the men and women of the U.S. military while simultaneously claiming they support the troops.
They also claim that anyone who disagrees with them hates the United States. But the real hatred is theirs, and they cannot stand when someone dares to disagree with their bigoted, narrow-minded view of the world.
Here’s the video:
