Anheuser-Busch, the beer manufacturer, has suffered a huge self-inflicted wound by employing transgender “woman” Dylan Mulvaney as a brand ambassador for Bud Lite.
Anheuser-Busch has put the female vice president of marketing who thought up the Mulvaney campaign on a presumably permanent leave of absence and fired the ad agency that helped her do it. Anheuser-Busch has reportedly lost about $6 billion in market value and as much as 20 percent of its market share.
That loss of market share and the reduced revenue that accompany it have been enough to bring Anheuser-Busch back to reality and make the company remember that its primary mission is to brew good beer. Unfortunately for our national security, there are no market protections against President Joe Biden’s political agenda, which is destroying the readiness and lethality of our military.
Anheuser-Busch’s transgender mess came late to the party. From October 2022 to March 2023, the U.S. Navy made an active-duty drag queen one of its “digital ambassadors” to help recruit new sailors, which we’ll get back to in a moment.
Back in the olden days of the 1990s, the military had a culture unto itself, defined by patriotism, tradition, and pride. Young men and women join the military for any number of reasons. Some do it to satisfy family tradition. Some join simply out of patriotism. Some join to get a job or to get away from their family and friends. Some join to earn GI Bill benefits, which is the only way they can go to college.
Two vignettes: My late great friend, former U.S. Navy SEAL Al Clark, once told me that he wanted to become a SEAL because it was the toughest group with the toughest training regimen. About 20 years ago, I was privileged to visit the John F. Kennedy Army Special Forces school at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for its Special Forces Robin Sage graduation exercise. When I talked to the Green Beret applicants, their most common refrain was that, after the 9/11 attacks, all they wanted to do was get a piece of the bad guys.
When people serve in the military, they have great pride in what they do. It may be something like what the special forces do, which nobody else can. It may take enormous skill like flying — or repairing — a fighter aircraft. The pride may simply be from being a part of something bigger than yourself.
A lot of that pride was dashed to pieces because of Biden’s bugging out of Afghanistan, which cost 13 lives and left hundreds of Americans behind, along with about $7 billion in weapons. If you’re in the military, speaking out about that debacle and asking for accountability among the generals is a sure way to get into big trouble.
Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller got fired from his job, investigated, and nearly court-martialed for doing just that. Shortly after Biden’s withdrawal debacle, Scheller said: “The reason people are so upset on social media right now is not because the Marine on the battlefield let someone down.… People are upset because their senior leaders let them down. And none of them are raising their hands and accepting accountability or saying, ‘We messed this up.’”
What Scheller said was exactly right. There is no accountability among the “leaders” of Biden’s military. There still is pride, but that’s a rapidly diminishing quantity. Scheller was allowed to retire rather than face court-martial.
Biden is carrying through the destruction of our military’s pride in itself and its culture. That would not be of great concern except that the military’s culture is what makes it effective in war and a deterrent to our enemies in peacetime.
On March 14, 1883, Karl Marx made his greatest contribution to mankind by dying. About 140 years later, Space Force Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Lohmeier was fired from his post as commander of the 11th Space Warning Squadron. The reason for his firing? He said that the Pentagon’s mandated diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training is “rooted in critical race theory, which is rooted in Marxism.” (RELATED: ‘Woke’ Defined)
This is factually accurate but intolerable to the people destroying our military.
Lohmeier also said of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, “I don’t demonize the man, but I want to make it clear to both him and every service member this [diversity and inclusion] agenda, it will divide us, it will not unify us.”
Again, factually accurate and more than enough to get Lohmeier fired.
Think about the DEI agenda and what it requires. For example, active-duty soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines have had to participate in “privilege walks.” During a privilege walk, they’re told to take a step forward if their parents had never been on welfare, if they’d never been discriminated against, and so forth. The principal effect is to separate the troops from their peers and make some feel underprivileged and resentful.
Lohmeier is still under investigation. His self-published book, Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military, reportedly claims that Marxist theory is becoming common within the military.
How far is the Biden agenda being enforced within the military?
The Navy appointed active-duty drag queen Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley to be one of its “digital ambassadors” last October in a program that ran through March. Kelley goes by the stage name “Harpy Daniels” and claims to be “non-binary.” He has reportedly performed his drag queen act aboard several ships.
The Navy is, like most of the branches of the armed services, seeing a major drop in recruitment and is failing to meet its need for new people. When I asked a couple of my retired Navy pals for a reaction to the drag queen recruitment tactic, their comments were mostly unprintable. The calmest reaction was that the chief of naval operations — the boss of the entire Navy — should be fired and every officer above the rank of lieutenant commander who was involved should be fired. I agree comprehensively.
Why would the Navy believe that having a drag queen recruit new sailors would be effective? What kind of people is the Navy trying to reach? Does the Navy really want the people who are attracted to join by watching “Harpy Daniels” perform? If so, why?
The only reason is that Biden’s military leaders are so dedicated to his DEI agenda that they care more about it than about the lethality and readiness of the forces under their command.
That’s a recipe for defeat in the next war. Messrs. Putin, Xi, and Khamenei must be greatly amused by what Biden is doing to our military.
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