Man, even the military has gone “woke?” Not for the most part, but the Army is now beginning to investigate a handout given at a “presentation on racism and discrimination” in which a graphic indicated that President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan — “Make America Great Again” — is deemed “covert white supremacy.”
I wish that was a joke, but it apparently happened.
[Alabama Rep.] Mo Brooks, a Republican who represents the district where the handout was distributed at the Redstone Arsenal, called the handout a “violation of the Hatch Act” designed to keep the military out of partisan politics. Brooks sent a letter to Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, copied to Trump, Attorney General William Barr and others.
He “demanded an investigation into Army personnel illegally using federal government resources to distribute racist and partisan political propaganda in direct violation of the federal Hatch Act and any number of military regulations,” according to a statement on his website. And he said that the Army must “prosecute and fire” Redstone Arsenal personnel responsible.
According to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC):
The Hatch Act, a federal law passed in 1939, limits certain political activities of federal employees, as well as some state, D.C., and local government employees who work in connection with federally funded programs. The law’s purposes are to ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion, to protect federal employees from political coercion in the workplace, and to ensure that federal employees are advanced based on merit and not based on political affiliation.
I guess that doesn’t apply to the FBI and CIA, but I won’t go down that rabbit hole.
In a press release on his government website, Brooks wrote that the U.S. Army shouldn’t be taking any kind of political position one way or another.
“Just as federal employees may not use federal time and resources to promote 'Make America Great Again,’” Brooks said in the statement, “neither may employees use federal time and resources to denigrate 'Make America Great Again.’”
The Alabama congressman went even further in a letter to McCarthy.
“There are better ways to accomplish this mission of Operation Inclusion without demonizing and asserting that those who support President Trump are “White Supremacists” and, therefore, racists,” Brooks wrote. “By including such outlandish propaganda in Army documents, the Army will only continue to sow divisions among their workforce.”
The whole Trump derangement syndrome thing is getting really old. We get it. Trump is a monster. Trump is the devil. Most people don’t even know why they dislike Trump, they just do what they’re told by politicians and celebrities. Sad.
(Writer's Note: You can view the handouts in question on both Brooks' website and The Military Times link above.)