🧵There’s a growing claim that speaking critically about the military today is “political.”
That would carry more weight if the institution itself had stayed outside domestic politics over the last several years.
It didn’t.
Let’s walk through it. 👇
Post 2/7
Summer 2020:
Senior military leaders began addressing domestic race issues through official channels.
Gen. CQ Brown (PACAF at the time) released a video in uniform speaking about George Floyd, systemic racism, and his personal experience as a Black officer.
This wasn’t private opinion.
It was official leadership messaging.
Post 3/7
It didn’t stop there.
Across the force:
-Army senior leadership acknowledged “racial divisions” within the Army
-Navy leadership established Task Force One Navy to address “systemic racism”
-Air Force leadership framed racism as an institutional issue
This was coordinated, not isolated. Not even a little bit.
Post 4/7
Then came implementation.
These ideas were embedded into the institution:
-Project Inclusion (Army)
-Diversity & Inclusion boards and initiatives
-Changes to promotion processes (e.g., removal of board photos)
-Training, reading lists, and command climate priorities
This wasn’t messaging. It became actual policy.
Post 5/7
Important point:
You can agree or disagree with those decisions. That’s not the argument.
The argument is that senior leaders used official authority to engage a contested domestic issue and then institutionalized it.
Post 6/7
So when people claim that current criticism is “political,” it misses the reality.
The military was already operating inside politically sensitive domestic terrain.
That line didn’t just get crossed recently.
It moved years ago.
Post 7/7
You don’t get to actively shape the conversation through official channels…
…and then call it “politicization” the moment others speak back.
That’s not neutrality, it's control.
You're in the prisoner's dilemma.
Act accordingly.
Call myself and others "partisan" for pointing this out?
F*ck you, no.
Cope.
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