Pete Hegseth quite famously recently went on a tirade of groups of people he’s banning from the military. “No tr*nnies, no fatties, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps” – anyone he just doesn’t like, basically. And as a direct result of that, a lot of people who are very good at their jobs, many of whom are quite high-ranking, are losing their jobs with no recourse and no career plan of what to do after.
And when I heard that speech the first time, the only thing I (a gay man) could think was “Good! Maybe if we annoy Kegbreath enough we can get him to add faggots to that list.”
The US military is not a good institution. When we’re not sending our soldiers to get shot at and get blown up so we have cheap oil, we’re sending them to topple democratically elected governments and terrorize civilians. Then when they get back, we take whichever ones aren’t dead, with PTSD, missing limbs, and a bunch of other things that will never heal, we thank them for their service by giving them so little help from the VA that they end up homeless.
Is it bad that I hate the military more than I love trans people?
Is it bad that i take a sort of perverse pleasure in watching him destroy the military like this? Is it bad that i low key want people to be stripped of their positions that they worked decades to get, for arbitrary bullshit reasons? Is it bad that I want them to feel that sense of disillusionment?
it’s horrible that these people are being left in a lurch with no career plan, and they deserve all the support we can muster (well, modulo all the people they killed or ordered killed), but at least the US military is smaller now, and high school and college kids watching this happen might think twice about joining.
The problem is that he’s attempting to create a military loyal to MAGA. A military that won’t object if Trump decides to use a nuke. A military that can be used to stage a coup if necessary. I don’t think we should root for that.
Okay, that’s true. And it won’t really matter how incompetent the “fighters” he has left are after he fires all the “weird” ones, all the rest of the good ones quit, and he pumps the losers he’s got left full of testosterone and pseudoscience. If Jan 6 could happen with a bunch of bored channers, any group with any amount of organization will have a much better chance.
Trump admin is trying to:
- Abandon allies and let Russia take on Ukraine and PRC take Taiwan
- Purge those most likely to be more moderate, aka: non-whites, women, trans, anyone else remaining perceived to be “not masculine enough”
- Loyalty test the remaining, but by loyalty they mean right wing ideology, not the constitution
- Use whatever remains of the military to murder as much American dissidenta as possible.
Fun fact (well not-so-fun fact actually): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/15/pentagon-civilian-death-program
Are we celebrating now?
I wont actually mind the scaling back on the US military if putin regime and ccp collapses and they become peaceful democracies, but like, right now, for the time being at least, lets hope the military is reformed, instead of being dismantled and potentially turning its remnants of far right loyalists against civillians (and potential last ditch effort to launch a global nuclear war just to deny “the rAdIcAl leFt” to “steal ‘their’ country”)
Even if you want a scaled down military, a sudden purge is the wrong way to do it.
Ideally it should be done slowly so Europe and Asia has time to build up their own defences so they can be self sufficient. (I mean I’m not saying the US should abandon them, but its just that one country projecting too much military power can be dangerous if the wrong person take control ahem as we can see right now)
I understand the satisfaction you feel but yes.
- some people decide to serve. Now some will be [more] discriminated against
- sometimes an effective defense is necessary. This action makes it less effective far faster than it saves money
- the goal seems to be blind obedience, which is strongly associated with the very worst military actions
- don’t let him off the hook
