President Joe Biden’s newest pick to lead U.S. Space Force Command previously removed a service member from duty for speaking out against so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” efforts and Marxism in the military.
Nominated by Biden earlier this month to be the next head of U.S. Space Force Command, Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting played a role in the firing of Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier. While promoting his book, Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military, during a May 2021 podcast interview, Lohmeier spoke about the increasing presence of Marxist thought permeating the U.S. military, specifically pointing to the embrace of DEI and critical race theory.
“Our diversity, inclusion, and equity [DEI] industry and the trainings we’re receiving in the military via that industry are rooted in critical race theory which is rooted in Marxism,” Lohmeier said. DEI is a divisive and poisonous ideology that favors dismissing merit to discriminate based on characteristics such as skin color and sexual characteristics. Meanwhile, critical race theory seeks to fracture society along racial lines by promoting the false concept that all white people are oppressors and all nonwhite people are oppressed.
Not long after Lohmeier’s podcast interview, a Space Force representative informed Military.com (and later CNN) that Whiting had “relieved” the lieutenant colonel of command due to a supposed “loss of trust and confidence in his ability to lead.” The representative further confirmed the decision was “based on” Lohmeier’s podcast remarks and that Whiting had initiated an investigation into Lohmeier to determine whether his comments “constituted prohibited partisan political activity.”
During the podcast interview, Lohmeier purportedly took issue with The New York Times’ thoroughly debunked 1619 Project, which attempts to rewrite history by asserting that America’s founding is based upon slavery and racism rather than the premise that “all men are created equal.” According to Lohmeier, such “anti-American” concepts are being pushed throughout the armed forces.
“It teaches intensive teaching that I heard at my base — that at the time the country ratified the United States Constitution, it codified white supremacy as the law of the land,” Lohmeier said. “If you want to disagree with that, then you start (being) labeled all manner of things including racist.”
As CBS News described, Lohmeier then went on to make clear that “he doesn’t care about the political views of his fellow service members, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans, but he does not want to see institutions politicized.” Lohmeier confirmed such sentiments to Fox News following his ousting.
In addition to firing Lohmeier, Whiting has a history of advancing DEI ideology throughout the U.S. military. According to a Feb. 26, 2021 Facebook post by the U.S. Space Operations Command, Whiting participated in a fireside chat with service members where he discussed “diversity and inclusion” in recruiting.
“We know that talent is evenly spread across this country through all demographics, but opportunity is not,” Whiting said. “So we have to fight through that traditional uneven distribution of opportunity and make sure that we’re bringing in the best from all facets of the United States to serve in our Space Force.”
Whiting is hardly the only Biden nominee who has promoted DEI ideology in the military. Gen. Charles Q. Brown, who serves as Air Force chief of staff and was nominated by Biden to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has also endorsed such teachings.
While participating in a virtual discussion hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in November 2020, for instance, Brown indicated that “[a]t the higher level of the Air Force, diversity ha[d] moved to the forefront of personnel decisions such as promotions and hiring.” During the same event, the Air Force general also admitted to using his post to increase opportunities for so-called “diverse candidates” in the Air Force, saying he “hire[d] for diversity” when building his staff.
Brown’s nomination is currently pending before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
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