Our friend Elaine Donnelly and her team at the respected non-partisan Center for Military Readiness asked this essential question in their recent newsletter: Will Americans rescue our military from wokeism?
It’s decision time, and the future of our military is at stake, Ms. Donnelly noted in the introduction to CMR’s quadrennial report on the national security positions of the parties and their candidates for President. Voters in several states already are voting in the 2024 Presidential Election, and Congress soon will be voting on one of the most consequential defense bills in years.
The Center for Military Readiness has posted its quadrennial CMR Report on the Republican and Democratic Parties’ National Platforms. CMR’s report also compares actions taken by the presidential candidates that support what they are saying now and what they have actually done in the past.
In reviewing the report one thing is crystal clear: The Republican and Democratic Platforms reveal stark contrast between the parties.
The Center for Military Readiness is non-partisan and does not endorse candidates, so we are going to pull the key points from the Democratic Party Platform and Kamala Harris’s record to warn CHQ voters about just how dangerous Harris and the Democrats are to our national security.
Number #1: Military/social issues are matters of national security. They require careful consideration at all times, but especially in presidential election years. America is not defended by weapons, ships, aircraft, and missiles alone. Our national Security depends on military/social policies that are essential in maintaining high morale and readiness to defend America.
Americans are looking for a new President of the United States who will act with common sense and leadership to restore morale and meritocracy in the only military we have. CMR has prepared this article to assist in the process of electing a new Commander-in-Chief.
WHAT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM SAYS . . . AND DOESN’T SAY
The 92-page Democratic Party National Platform, which retains numerous inexplicable references to “President Biden’s second term,” proclaims, “The United States has the finest fighting force in the history of the world.” In a one-page “Strengthening American Leadership Worldwide” section of Chapter Nine, which touches on defense and foreign policy, the platform praises the various branches of the military as “the envy of the globe.” (p. 90)
Chapter Nine notes that President Joe Biden has made “historic investments in America’s industrial base” to “support U.S. and allied forces in combat zones such as Ukraine.”
It also points to pay raises for military personnel, “over $10 billion to enhance health care services for veterans and active-duty personnel,” housing improvements, support for military spouses, childcare, and increased funds for “education and employment opportunities” that“[underscore] the critical role that families play in the strength of the armed forces.” (pp. 90-91)
Afghanistan
The platform states, “President Biden has never and will never turn his back on our military,” (p. 90) and includes another jarring reference to Afghanistan on page 88: “President Biden ended America’s longest war, bringing our troops home from Afghanistan and facilitating the resettlement of over 120,000 Afghan partners and their families in the United States, the largest resettlement effort since the Vietnam War.”
The families of 13 American servicemembers killed on August 26, 2021, at Kabul Airport’s Abbey Gate certainly would disagree. They are painfully aware that no one has resigned or been fired for their role in the chaotic retreat from Afghanistan.
Due to the setting of a politically motivated “date certain” evacuation goal and misplaced trust in the Taliban, the Biden/Harris Administration abandoned Bagram Air Base and evacuated troops first. According to a House Foreign Affairs Committee report titled Willful Blindness, “The Biden-Harris administration prioritized the optics of the withdrawal over the security of U.S. Personnel on the ground.” (p. 17) “When the last military aircraft departed Kabul, approximately 1,000 Americans were left behind and over 90% of eligible Afghans were still in the country.” (p. 22) Kamala Harris, now the Democratic Party’s nominee for President, claims to be the “last person in the room” when these inexplicable decisions were made.
Gold Star family members also have spoken about President Biden’s callous failure to reach out to them, his watch-checking behavior at the airport transfer ceremony, and his false claim that no military personnel had died on his watch.
Weakness Invites War
The Democratic platform statements quoted above do not reflect the actual record of the Biden/Harris Administration on national defense issues. Despite the one-word admonition “Don’t,” stated by Biden and several high-level officials, Americans have witnessed a series of foreign policy failures with adversaries emboldened by the Afghan debacle. For example:
* After Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russia invaded Ukraine, triggering a war that is still raging, and North Korea has resumed threats of missile attacks on South Korea and other Pacific allies.
* China got away with conducting electronic surveillance with a spy balloon floating over the United States in February 2023, and has stepped-up its belligerence against Taiwan.
* Biden/Harris Administration efforts in pursuit of a dubious nuclear weapons deal have enriched Iran, which has financed its proxy terrorist group Hamas, which launched the vicious October 7, 2023, attack on American ally Israel.
* Iran also funds Hezbollah, another proxy terrorist group, as well as Houthi forces that have launched relentless attacks against the U.S. Navy from Yemen and the Red Sea.
* At the same time, the Navy has suffered numerous failures of leadership and the troubled Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) pier project for delivering humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza became a costly embarrassment.
Military/Social and “Anti-Extremism” Taken to Extremes
In the early months of the Biden Administration, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin initiated a massive “anti-extremism” campaign involving full-day stand-down sessions worldwide. Despite the hype, a 2021 DoD investigation to find extremism in the ranks reported fewer than 100 such cases.
Nevertheless, according to a study conducted by the Center for American Institutions at Arizona State University, the DoD requested more than $68 million, $86.5 million, and $114.7 million in 2022, 2023, and 2024, respectively, for divisive critical race theory and DEI programs focusing on an apparently minuscule problem.
Other sections of the platform explicitly promote controversial goals such as a “single-payer” government takeover of America’s health systems, federally-controlled elections, and draconian “climate change” penalties on “carbon emission” offenders.
The platform heavily promotes LGBTQ+ activities in civilian schools and institutions, mentioning them 37 times in Chapter Six alone. (pp. 56-57) Significantly, the word “climate” appears 81 times – 39 of them in Chapter 9 on defense.
The Democratic Platform does not mention several anti-military Executive Orders, which imposed wokeism on the military regardless of the harmful consequences.
* Biden’s February 2021 Executive Order, for example, imposed the most radical DEI mandates ever imposed on government agencies, including the Department of Defense.
* With several strokes of his pen, President Biden abolished President Trump’s 1776 Advisory Commission and imposed discriminatory “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) practices and critical race theory (CRT) indoctrination programs. These leftist instructions, incorporated in the curricula of military service academies and DoD Education Activity (DoDEA) schools, divide individuals into racial groups and treat them differently.
* According to the organization Open the Books, when a furor arose in 2023 over the placement of self-identified woke activist Kelisa Wing to run DEI programs in DoDEA schools Pentagon officials reassigned Wing but continued her CRT programs in a DoD Steering Committee. The Open the Books report, titled “Schools for Radicals,” presented evidence of parents being denied information about DoDEA CRT programs as well as transgender indoctrination beginning with students as young as four years old.
The LGBTQ+ Agenda
The Democratic platform does not mention:
* The Biden Administration’s compulsion to celebrate and impose on the military every element of the “LGBTQ+” agenda. These include accommodation of military personnel who identify as transgender, including lifelong treatments or surgeries that attempt to change sex by changing physical appearance.
* Annual “LGBT Pride Month observances in June, which have included outlandish drag queen performances which demean women, for adults and children attending DoD schools on military bases.
* Mentions of controversial hormone treatments and irreversible surgeries on military dependent children. The Biden Administration (and Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz) have pressured to lower age limits for such treatments, established to offer minimal protection for vulnerable children under age 16.
* During her ill-fated 2020 presidential campaign, in response to a questionnaire from the American Civil Liberties Union, backed spending taxpayer dollars on gender reassignment surgeries for prison inmates, decriminalizing drugs, and ending US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers for illegal immigrants accused of crimes. (Harris affirms her “values” have not changed.)
* Arguments that the Biden/Harris Departments of Justice and Defense presented before the U.S. Supreme Court in support of racially discriminatory policies at the military service academies. The DoJ took this position in litigation brought before the U.S. Supreme Court by students who successfully challenged such discriminatory practices (Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and University of N. Carolina, 2022), and in new litigation filed against the U.S. Military Academy and the U.S. Naval Academy.
* Detailed DoD directives and pronoun mandates that force commanders and medical practitioners to approve or participate in reality-denying speech, “sex transition” surgeries, and lengthy time-off options that harm readiness and morale.
* Any mention of meritocracy as the paramount consideration in all personnel decisions.
What Democratic Candidates Kamala Harris and Tim Walz Are Saying Elsewhere
The Democratic Platform mentions President Biden, but not Vice President Kamala Harris, his replacement as presidential nominee. The American Principles Project has tracked Harris’s longstanding “obsession” with gender identity issues, specifically those involving children.
Harris’s running mate Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota has raised eyebrows for several reasons, including his longtime associations with China. The Daily Caller has reported on Walz’s determined efforts to cut most age requirements for genital surgeries on children. Walz also signed a “Trans Refuge” law enabling children from other states to receive state-funded genital surgeries in Minnesota.
Conclusion:
Our military is governed under principles of civilian control. Voters have the ultimate responsibility to choose the next Commander-in-Chief and members of Congress who will put national security first.
In view of the many extremely liberal social mandate planks that appear in the Democratic Platform and policies advocated or implemented by the candidates themselves, it is reasonable to expect that a Harris/Walz Administration would continue and expand current policies that have made military life more difficult and more dangerous.
The Center for Military Readiness, an independent public policy organization that reports on and analyzes military/social issues. CMR does not endorse or oppose specific legislation or candidates and any conclusions or recommendations to that effect in this article are the opinions of ConservativeHQ.com, not CMR. For more information and to support the work of CMR go to https://www.cmrlink.org/
2024 Election
Kamala Harris campaign
Military Readiness
Cultural Marxism
Hispanic male voters
Male African-American voters
Democrat contributions
price gouging
price controls
first-time home buyers
25th Amendment
public housing
ActBlue donations
Donald Trump campaign
Kamala Harris campaign
Kamala Harris senate record
Comments