You Can’t Erase the Truth
Pete Hegseth is on the warpath to purge history he doesn’t like
Not many things you can take to the bank, but believe me — this reporter has, through many decades of employment, never felt discriminated against because I’m white. But to hear Donald Trump tell it, times have changed dramatically in America.
Trump insists that white American heterosexual men are now a persecuted group. It is his basic argument for vanquishing all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the federal government, and he has strong-armed public and private companies to go along with this charade.
One of Trump’s loyalist minions, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, is taking it a step further in this latest culture war battle. Hegseth has already deleted Pentagon webpages and erased photographs of prominent Black, Latino, and female members of the U.S. military. He has fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a Black four-star general, and the Commandant of the Coast Guard, a female admiral.
He is on a rampage to remove mention of anyone in the U.S. military who isn’t white, straight, and male. On Tuesday, Hegseth ordered the Navy to remove the name of the USNS Harvey Milk, a Navy support ship named for the political trailblazer and gay rights activist. The decision to make the announcement at the beginning of Pride Month was no accident.
Milk served in the Navy during the Korean War and was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1978. He was assassinated later that year by a political rival. The ship was named in his honor in 2016.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell tried to explain the rationale. “Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DoD installations and assets are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos,” he said.
Though the USNS Harvey Milk was the only ship mentioned, CBS News has obtained a list of other vessels in Hegseth’s crosshairs:
USNS Cesar Chavez - named for a co-founder of the United Farm Workers union and civil rights activist
USNS Medgar Evers - named for the civil rights activist assassinated by a white supremacist in 1963
USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg - named for the second woman justice on the Supreme Court, who fought for gender equality and civil rights
USNS Dolores Huerta - named for a co-founder of the United Farm Workers union
USNS Thurgood Marshall - named for the first Black Supreme Court justice and a pioneering civil rights attorney
USNS Lucy Stone - named for an abolitionist and suffragist who after became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree and fought for women’s rights
USNS Harriet Tubman - named for an enslaved person who escaped to freedom and then became a conductor on the Underground Railroad and Union spy during the Civil War
“Pete Hegseth, the least qualified secretary of defense in American history. And this is the guy leading the charge? It's a joke. You’re not qualified for the job that you have. You didn’t get that job on merit,” said Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, in a news conference after the name removal announcement.
This is not Hegseth’s first attempt to erase history by erasing names. In 2020, Congress mandated that names of military installations honoring the Confederacy be removed. Fort Bragg, named for Confederate General Braxton Bragg, became Fort Liberty. Hegseth reversed the name back to Bragg but claimed it was now named for Private First Class Roland Bragg, who served during WWII.
He did it again with Fort Benning, named for Confederate Lieutenant General Henry Benning, a Southern secessionist who opposed freeing enslaved people. In 2023, it was renamed Fort Moore to honor the service of Lieutenant General Hal Moore and his wife, Julia. In March of this year, Hegseth reverted the name back to Benning, but this time it was said to be in honor of Fred Benning, an Army corporal who served in France during WWI.
Where did Trump find people like Pete Hegseth? The answer, of course, is the propaganda pit that is Fox “News.” In many important ways, there was a better America before Rupert Murdoch launched his right-wing “journalism” project. The far-right “views as news” was bad enough, as it brainwashed countless susceptible viewers with disinformation and hatred under the guise of news. But now, former Fox employees like Hegseth are policy-making government officials.
As someone who was deeply involved in reporting on the Civil Rights Movement long before Hegseth was born, I am appalled that he would dismiss the struggles, the pain and suffering, even the death that so many Americans of color faced and the fight for recognition and equality that so many Americans strived for — those who weren’t straight white men. Can our differences in skin color, gender, or who we love really be a threat to Trump and his clan? No. This is about fueling prejudice to increase his power.
For Trump, renaming is a conspicuous way to show he is fighting for “oppressed” white men everywhere! But he is also doing something far more nefarious. The Trump administration is using civil rights protections, meant to support people of color, women, people with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ+ community, to rectify what he claims is the disenfranchisement of white men. Trump says he believes that merit should be the only criterion for advancement, though looking at his Cabinet, one wonders at his definition of the term.
The administration has opened a civil rights investigation into the hiring practices of the city of Chicago, alleging the city has discriminated against white people by hiring Black people to senior government positions.
And Harvard, one of the administration’s favorite punching bags, is being investigated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for supposedly discriminatory hiring practices. The EEOC alleges that Harvard has favored minorities, women, and nonbinary faculty over white men.
Any group, including straight white men, can be stereotyped or excluded. But what Trump, Hegseth, and their ilk are about is fanning old fires of hate to benefit themselves and their agenda.
By the way, Hegseth chose to skip a NATO meeting today that was convened to discuss the escalating Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is the first time a secretary of defense has failed to show up for a meeting of the group, which was created by the U.S. to coordinate military aid to Ukraine. Perhaps he was too busy trying to decide which American civil rights leader’s name and history to erase next.
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Dan
We’re all appalled at their hatred, ignorance and hypocrisy. Thank you for always being a steady voice.
Hegseth should be removed.