Since February, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville effectively prevented the promotion of hundreds of generals and flag officers over Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s commitment to subsidize thousands of abortions for U.S. service members and their families.
Tuberville isn’t the only Republican senator who takes issue with Austin’s advancement of the Biden administration’s radical abortion agenda. But his crusade to keep taxpayer dollars from ending life in the womb, something a majority of Americans oppose, has been riddled with opposition from Democrats, corporate media, and top brass. Now, even senior members of his own party such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are throwing him under the bus.
The most recent wave of attacks on Tuberville’s stonewalling center on a dishonest narrative that the Alabama legislator apparently “refused to denounce” white nationalism in a radio interview in May.
“Do you believe they should allow white nationalists in the military?” WBHM’s Richard Banks asked.
“Well, they call them that. I call them Americans,” Tuberville replied.
Tuberville’s comments are not inaccurate. They are simply predicated on the fact that, under the Biden regime, smears like “white nationalist,” along with “domestic extremist” and others, have been used by Democrats, their activist allies like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, and bureaucrats to justify targeting dissenters.
“We are losing in the military so fast. Our readiness in terms of recruitment. And why? I’ll tell you why, because the Democrats are attacking our military, saying we need to get out the white extremists, the white nationalists, people that don’t believe in our agenda, as Joe Biden’s agenda. They’re destroying it,” Tuberville said in the initial interview.
The senator also repeated this clarification in an exchange with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in mid-June.
“I’m totally against anything to do with racism. But the thing about being a white nationalist — it’s just a cover word for the Democrats now where they can use it to try to make people mad across the country, identity politics. I’m totally against that,” Tuberville said.
Despite the truthful roots of Tuberville’s quick response, bad-faith attacks from all sides continued. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuberville’s comments were “deeply and terribly disturbing.” Lt. Gen. Andrew Rohling, the deputy commanding general of U.S. Army Europe-Africa, called Tuberville’s stonewalling tactics “reprehensible, irresponsible and dangerous.”
“I asked Sen. Tuberville why he continues to insist white nationalists are American. And he repeatedly tried to move on when pressed further,” ABC’s senior congressional reporter Rachel Scott complained on Twitter on Tuesday.
Her line of questioning led to a deluge of propaganda press pieces claiming Tuberville “now says ‘White nationalists are racists’ after refusing to denounce them.”
“Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Tuesday said, simply and for the first time, that ‘white nationalists are racists,’” the lede on ABC’s article stated.
Performative Politicians
Instead of coming to Tuberville’s aid, top Republicans have also begun to shun him from the sidelines using ammunition offered to them by Democrats and the corporate media.
The only statement top Senate Republican McConnell, who acknowledges “Democrats’ Abortion Extremism Puts Them Outside The Mainstream,” made about the issue was not a defense of Tuberville or his important pro-life work, but a boilerplate condemnation of white supremacy.
“White supremacy is simply unacceptable in the military and in our whole country,” McConnell told reporters in a Capitol hallway on Tuesday.
Senate Minority Whip John Thune said in another statement that the U.S. military would be impaired unless Tuberville let up.
“I think the longer this drags on, the more problematic it becomes for the military to function and operate in the way that I think the American people expect them to operate,” Thune told reporters.
McConnell’s statement is weak and dishonest. Thune’s is a blatant lie. He overlooks the fact that Austin could end this by simply rescinding his pledge to grant up to three weeks of paid time off and travel costs for his employees and their family members to obtain abortions. Thune also ignores the fact that the U.S. military faced a recruiting and identity crisis long before Tuberville moved to hold the Pentagon accountable.
“The Pentagon’s new abortion policy has everything to do with activist politics and nothing to do with Congress’s obligation to raise and maintain armed forces to provide for the common defense,” military policy experts retired Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin and retired Lt. Col. James J. Carafano wrote for The Federalist in May.
This isn’t the first time Senate Republicans have balked at standing up to Democrats’ abortion radicalism, one of their voters’ top-line issues. In April, McConnell allies Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska sabotaged an opportunity to curb Democrats’ radical abortion agenda by opposing a resolution authored by Tuberville that would stop the Biden administration’s Department of Veterans Affairs from handing out abortions. Before that, they banded together to oppose Sen. Lindsey Graham and his federal pro-life legislation which would have finally brought the U.S. up to speed with the type of restrictions other civilized countries enacted years ago.
Tuberville has worked for months to keep the Pentagon from doing the Biden administration’s bidding on abortion. For his efforts, he should be at least supported if not celebrated by the pro-life party. Instead, he is mocked, belittled, and abandoned by politicians who have proven over and over again that their commitment to preserving life in the womb is performative.
Thankfully for the pro-life organizations and the millions of Americans who say their hard-earned tax dollars shouldn’t be used to end life in the womb, Tuberville said he doesn’t plan to give up the fight.
“I’m trying to get the attention of this Department of Defense and the White House. Listen to the people, listen to the people. I’m not trying to hurt anybody. Listen to the people, and let’s get this thing done,” Tuberville said on CNN on Monday night.
