{"id":15763,"date":"2023-07-20T04:04:27","date_gmt":"2023-07-20T09:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=15763"},"modified":"2023-07-20T04:04:31","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T09:04:31","slug":"desantis-defends-pentagon-proposal-purgingwokepolicy-from-military","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=15763","title":{"rendered":"DeSantis defends Pentagon proposal purging\u2018woke\u2019policy from military"},"content":{"rendered":"\n


<\/u>Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis<\/u><\/a> on Tuesday defended his Pentagon plan in an exclusive interview with CNN\u2019s Jake Tapper, which would address recruiting woes by stripping the military of so-called \u201cwoke\u201d policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou clearly have a problem with recruiting,\u201d DeSantis told Tapper. \u201cAnd at this level everybody has acknowledged these recruiting levels are at a crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy is that the case? I think it\u2019s because people see the military losing its way, not focusing on the mission, and focusing on a lot of these other things,\u201d the 2024 presidential candidate said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeSantis earlier Tuesday unveiled a plan that would eliminate diversity initiatives, punish former military leaders who engage in politics and end programs designed to ready the country\u2019s national defense system for a climate change future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He would also revoke a policy that allows transgender personnel to serve in the military in their preferred sex, reinstate personnel who were dismissed for refusing a coronavirus vaccine and end Department of Defense efforts to combat extremism. The plan would also put in place gender neutral standards for women and men who serve in the armed forces, and he would oppose including women in a military draft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research conducted by the Army and obtained by CNN, however, ranks \u201cwokeness\u201d in the Army below concerns over discrimination against women and racial or ethnic minorities as a barrier to entry to enlisting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The research, used by the Army\u2019s marketing arm, asked respondents to evaluate potential barriers to entry into the military branch \u2013 putting aside worries over possibility of injury or death, emotional or psychological harm and leaving friends and family, the top three barriers to entry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without those three worries on the list, concerns over the Army placing \u201ctoo much emphasis on \u2018wokeness\u2019\u201d ranked ninth, while concerns over discrimination against women and minorities ranked second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the research, \u201cputting the rest of my life on hold\u201d ranked as the most important barrier, with a \u201cpreference share\u201d of 21%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report says that metric \u201cindicates the relative importance of a barrier compared to the others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concerns about racial, ethnic and gender discrimination had a \u201cpreference share\u201d of 13%, while too much emphasis on \u201cwokeness\u201d had a \u201cpreference share\u201d of 5%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pressed by Tapper on the research numbers contradicting his stance that \u201cwokeness\u201d was having a stronger effect on recruiting than diversity worries, DeSantis demurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, but I think there\u2019s an issue about, like, not everyone really knows what wokeness is,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, I\u2019ve defined it, but a lot of people who rail against wokeness can\u2019t even define it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Army\u2019s report, however, clearly defined \u201cwokeness\u201d as \u201cdiversity\/equity training, marginalizing those with conservative views, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeSantis\u2019s anti-woke policy proposals mirror similar actions he has taken as governor of Florida, where he banned<\/u><\/a> universities from spending on diversity and inclusion programs, prohibited training related to privilege in society and eliminated certain teaching about race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGo to a [Veterans of Foreign Wars] hall, go to an American Legion. There\u2019s a huge amount of concern about the direction\u2013 that the military is going with all this. And here\u2019s the thing, things like DEI and all that stuff, it hasn\u2019t worked in other aspects of society,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior enlisted US military leaders in a March congressional hearing pushed back<\/u><\/a> against GOP lawmakers\u2019 assertions that the force is being politicized by \u201cwoke\u201d initiatives and said such claims are hurting recruitment and distracting from the military\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Army National Guard officer, Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston in the hearing also referenced research the Army did on barriers to service among potential recruits, saying diversity and inclusion efforts were \u201cnot the number one, two, three, four, five reasons\u201d young Americans were not joining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the narrative that we are focused on that more than warfighting is what\u2019s perhaps hurting us,\u201d Air Force Chief Master Sgt. JoAnne Bass said, adding the Air Force \u201cdoes not have pronoun training. And \u2026 where we could use your help is by sharing that message that your services are not focused on any of those such training more than we are on warfighting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cnn<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday defended his Pentagon plan in an exclusive interview with CNN\u2019s Jake Tapper, which would address recruiting woes by stripping the military of so-called \u201cwoke\u201d policy. \u201cYou clearly have a problem with recruiting,\u201d DeSantis told Tapper. \u201cAnd at this level everybody has acknowledged these recruiting levels are at a crisis.\u201d \u201cWhy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":15765,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9992,9827,1156,9991,3453],"class_list":["post-15763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-wake-up-policy","tag-conscription","tag-military","tag-pentagon-plan","tag-ron-desantis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15763"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15766,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15763\/revisions\/15766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}