Pete Hegseth Revives Segregation in the "War" Department

Loyalty Tests and Identity Purges Now Threaten America’s Fighting Force

Oct 02, 2025

Segregation Signs – For All The World To See – UMBC

On September 30, 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth summoned one thousand of our top military leaders to Marine Corps Base Quantico to force a livestreamed demonstration of allegiance to a regressive, exclusionary agenda harkening back to the worst days of American history.

Hegseth relied on falsehoods and propagandistic rhetoric to justify abrupt policy reversals targeting women, minorities, religious adherents, and others for exclusion, and he openly sought to bring our top brass to heel to remake the U.S. military in his ideological image.

In an address to some of our longest-serving and most highly-decorated military leadership, Hegseth consistently invoked far-right ideological themes, not facts or military analysis.

My previous piece about Hegseth’s body ink provides relevant background.

The Speech

Hegseth aggressively outlined his agenda:

He pushed a narrative of male superiority and exclusion despite widely recognized data regarding the established competence of female personnel.
He framed diversity as divisive using unsubstantiated, propagandistic language without ever citing real negative outcomes or any specifics.
He manufactured a dangerous idea of “enemies within” and tried to conflate military readiness with political and cultural conformity, a common tactic of authoritarian manipulation.

Mandatory Loyalty Tests: He demanded that every leader at the event either implement his changes without protest or “if my words today bring you dismay, then you should do the honorable thing and step down.” With this, Hegseth used policy changes as a test of personal allegiance.

Create New Sexist Exclusions: Hegseth declared, “All personnel in combat roles will be required to meet the highest male standard. If that results in no women in those positions, so be it.” He added, “I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape or in combat units with females who can’t meet the same combat arms physical standards expected of men”. He insisted that women “should be held to male standards,” explicitly implying women are inherently less capable and unwelcome in combat.

Eliminate Pro-Soldier Protections: Hegseth claimed, “the era of politically correct, overly sensitive, don’t-hurt-anyone’s-feelings leadership ends right now,” and criticized the concepts of toxic leadership, bullying, and hazing as “distorted” and “weaponized” to punish “tough leaders.” He announced he would revoke restrictions on hazing in basic training and stop targeting abusers, which any common sense individual could predict directly facilitates a climate in which abuse and exclusion can thrive.

Enforce Discriminatory Standards: Hegseth mandated no exceptions for medical or religious reasons: “If you want a beard, you can join special forces. If not, then shave. We don’t have a military full of Nordic pagans.” This punishes Black men likely to require medical waivers, Sikh, Jewish, and Muslim service members whose beards are a matter of faith, and special operators who need beards for mission safety. He labeled “fat generals and admirals” as unacceptable, signaling an intent to enforce arbitrary appearance standards on military leadership—even as current fitness testing already holds senior officers accountable for age- and gender-appropriate benchmarks–standards Hegseth himself may struggle to meet as evidenced by his own recent public difficulties performing pull-ups. (Video Credit: TikTok/@bernardtaylorforcongress)

End Diversity and Inclusion: “No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses, no more climate change worship, no more division, distraction, or gender delusions.” Hegseth said those policies were “woke garbage” and ordered their abolition.

Anti-DEI Means Pro-Climate Change: Hegseth ridiculed and attacked climate-focused military research and policy in his speech, labeling it as “climate change worship” and “climate nonsense”.

Obvious Far-Right Ideology

Hegseth explicitly rooted his speech in far-right ideology:

He promoted male-dominated hierarchies and used policy to exclude women, repeatedly referencing his wish for a military free of gender integration.
He condemned diversity as division, reinforcing white supremacist narratives and targeting “racial quotas” and appointments based on “immutable characteristics”.
He dehumanized critics and internal opponents, labeling them as “the enemy from within” and encouraging military use of American cities as “training grounds”, deliberately conflating political disagreement with military threat.

This kind of rhetoric poses a grave societal risk.

By normalizing extremist frames and encouraging binary “us versus them” thinking, Hegseth’s words could incite violence, embolden so-called lone wolf actors, and accelerate the radicalization of individuals or groups already susceptible to conspiracy or hate-based ideologies.

Repeated from a position of such authority, this messaging provides ideological cover and inspiration for those inclined toward violence against perceived opponents inside or outside the military.

Psychological Manipulation

Hegseth wielded several techniques associated with psychological manipulation in mass communication:

Created a sense of existential crisis: “Enemies gather, threats grow. There is no time for games. We must be prepared. If we’re going to prevent and avoid war, we must prepare now”.
Reinforced a binary identity: “No more distractions, no more political ideologies, no more debris” and issued a clear ultimatum: “Disagree? Quit. Now.”
Attempted to generate organizational confusion and vulnerability, explicitly blending legitimate military concerns with ideological demands, mirroring Russian maskirovka tactics to destabilize professional military norms and turn everything into a test of loyalty and conformity.
He capped his argument with violent rhetoric: “We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy… We do not engage with foolish rules of engagement. We must empower warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and eliminate our nation’s adversaries. No more politically correct and oppressive rules of engagement,” promoting a culture where brutality, not law or ethics, becomes the ultimate standard for action and belonging within the institution of the military.

The relentless framing of the moment as a “crisis” requiring absolute commitment to Hegseth’s worldview left no space for dissent, professionalism, nor honor rooted in constitutional service.

Trump Follow-Up

President Trump followed Hegseth with a speech that explicitly endorsed and magnified the coercive climate by echoing his false claims and demanding political loyalty from military leaders.

He described U.S. cities as “training grounds,” called for the military to target “internal enemies” (civilian critics and opposition) and framed compliance with the most extreme personnel policies as the new metric for leadership.

He praised the new policies, stated “the best, the boldest, the bravest that the world has ever seen,” and declared, “we will fight, fight, fight, and we will win, win, win”.
He presented domestic opponents as military targets: “America is under invasion from within. We’re under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms. At least when they’re wearing a uniform, you can take them out”.
He stated, “I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military. National Guard, but our military…” making clear he intends to repurpose the armed forces for domestic control and intimidation. This openly flirts with the outer edge of the Posse Comitatus Act and decades of civil-military norms that restrain federal forces from domestic policing–a bright red boundary line that administrations of both parties have historically treated as sacrosanct.
He endorsed potential displays of personal allegiance from military leaders and made it clear he would dismiss officers “on the spot” if he found them personally unsatisfactory.

Trump used his platform to reinforce Hegseth’s manufactured crisis while providing not a single shred of evidence that American cities, military women, or diversity policies pose a threat.

Ideological Restructuring

If you think this is mostly bluff and bluster, think again. Hegseth has issued various directives to shut down specific offices and programs designed to support DEI.

Since early 2025, he has:

Dissolved the Department of Defense’s Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, which, among other things, ran anti-bias and anti-harassment training, gathered survey data, and coordinated compliance with equal opportunity regulations.
Canceled all branch- and installation-level diversity officers and working groups, such as the Army’s Project Inclusion task forces, Navy’s Task Force One Navy, and Air Force’s Barrier Analysis Working Groups, all initiatives that worked towards identifying and remedying disparities in promotion, assignment, and retention.
Reinstated a ban on openly transgender troops and denied enlistment to new transgender applicants. The Pentagon’s official guidance in spring and summer 2025 directed that transgender troops be separated from service, with no hearings or recourse, and new accessions for openly trans individuals were blocked across all branches.
Ended mandatory reporting channels for harassment and discrimination events and rescinded requirements for DEI training, previously shown to reduce complaints and increase unit cohesion.
Ordered the termination of more than 90 military climate studies and initiatives, including projects on base resilience, disaster planning, energy efficiency, and adaptation to extreme weather, despite overwhelming evidence and expert warnings that climate change represents a major security threat to U.S. installations and operations.

Negative Impacts

Military sociologists, retired commanders, and current troops have widely condemned the elimination of DEI.

Experts expect increases in unreported harassment, discrimination, and toxic command climates, noting DEI structures were the main recourse for those facing abuse or exclusion. Without culture surveys and task forces, senior leaders will lose critical early-warning signals about problems undermining unit effectiveness and retention, leading to more public crises and trust erosion. Service members most affected: women, Black personnel, and religious minorities, who say that dropping DEI protections signals 'open season’ for bias and marginalization.
The ban on transgender troops ended the military careers of hundreds of service members who had served honorably, resulting in the loss of worked/earned pension time and cancellation of gender transition-related medical care. Children of service members can no longer receive gender-related medical care. These changes send a chilling message about acceptance and about the basic entitlements to safety and support within the context of America’s commitments to our service members, veterans, and their families.
Experts warn that dropping climate programs will leave U.S. bases more vulnerable to hurricanes, wildfires, heat waves, and other disasters, undermine strategic operations in the Arctic and Pacific, and cede leadership on security issues to adversaries like China.

Despite offering no evidence of DEI programs causing operational harm, Hegseth denounced all these efforts as “woke garbage”, which is harmful rhetoric that willfully misleads the public he purports to serve while he simultaneously removes important protections and seeks to exclude minority groups from our fighting force.

No military report or nonpartisan review supports Hegseth’s claims.

Decades of research confirm DEI policies improve morale, performance, and retention rather than “weakening warrior culture”. Every major claim Hegseth made about military “decline” resulting from diversity, inclusion, or gender integration stands contradicted by military data, leadership experience, and independent review.

Villain Origin Story

Hegseth’s book, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free, serves as a bizarre manifesto against what he describes as the “woke” transformation of the U.S. military and a public airing of his personal grievances after his dismissal surrounding Biden’s inauguration.

In the book, Hegseth attacks the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (LGBT integration into the military) as a gateway to what he calls dangerous ideological changes, rails against DEI initiatives, and caricatures modern efforts to counter extremism and address bias as signs of institutional decay and softness. He repeatedly blames senior military leaders and “effeminate” policies for his own career setbacks, arguing that he alone embodies “real” military values, despite the obviously broad evidence to the contrary and his own limited command experience.

The book fixates on perceived personal slights, especially his own exclusion from participation in the Biden inauguration, and frames these as emblematic of what he alleges is the military’s moral and strategic decline. However, Hegseth’s removal from National Guard duty during Biden’s inauguration was the direct result of concerns raised by fellow soldiers who observed firsthand the ideological extremism encoded in his tattoos. Troops who served with him reported feeling uneasy and even threatened by his display of symbols which includes the Jerusalem Cross, “Deus Vult,” and “kafir” in Arabic—all of which signal militant and extremist beliefs and open hostility toward perceived enemies of his worldview.

For many service members, especially Muslim Americans and those familiar with militia and hate group iconography, these tattoos are understood as red flags for possible insider threat, radicalization, and loyalty to ideologies at odds with American values, all risks which are encouraged to be reported to one’s unit leadership and could in turn result in a flag on a soldier’s security clearance, marking an incident for further investigation.

In Hegseth’s case, multiple soldiers flagged his presence to command as an exposure risk, worried that Hegseth’s presence during the presidential transition potentially represented a real danger to the cohesion of the unit and/or the security of the event, so much so that they chose to report it despite the strong Army culture which discourages snitching on a peer, often stigmatized as being a “Blue Falcon” (buddy fucker).

Their concerns are now clearly vindicated by the policies he has pursued since being appointed Secretary of Defense.

What Could Happen

The cumulative impact of Hegseth’s harmful policy changes is poised to inflict deep, lasting damage across the military’s most critical dimensions.

Repurposing federal troops for domestic “training” erodes the firewall between civil society and the instruments of war, accelerating the current breach of civil-military norms that are themselves stabilizers of democratic governance.

In terms of operational readiness, the exclusion of women, transgender personnel, and numerous minorities not only shrinks the pool of available talent but also risks undermining the specialized capabilities, such as cyber, medicine, and intelligence, where measures of diversity have historically improved outcomes and filled persistent shortfalls.

Senior military leaders and independent analysts warn that the abandonment of anti-hazing standards, the normalization of bullying, and disregard for morale will produce toxic environments, driving experienced officers and technical experts to leave the service.

Domestic and allied observers continue to register alarm at the United States’ apparent abandonment of established commitments to human rights and climate security, further undercutting trust in American leadership and reliability on the world stage, if such a thing were possible.

Perhaps most concerning is the breakdown in civil-military relations, a foundational pillar in this republic’s security architecture. By making obedience to a political ideology, MAGA, a prerequisite for service and promotion, Hegseth has severely weakened the apolitical tradition essential to maintaining military legitimacy under the rule of law and has accelerated the likelihood that the armed forces will become a tool of partisan ambition at home.

Inside the ranks, morale is already suffering.

The rise in uncertainty, fear, and the rapid loss of hard-earned protections have led to increased resignations or plans for the same among officers, professional specialists, and rank-and-file troops who once felt secure in their service. If these trends continue, the United States may face not only strategic setbacks but also a generational crisis of trust and retention, one that could take decades, if not longer, to repair.

In Closing

Pete Hegseth’s speech yesterday did not cite operational failures, readiness reports, or peer-reviewed assessments to try and justify the enactment of harmful and discriminatory policies. Instead of facts, his PR junket in Quantico, which the government likely spent millions of dollars to produce, leaned heavily on ideology, propaganda, and psychological manipulation in an effort to publicly debase the steadfast and valorous leaders of the United States Armed Forces who refuse to turn their backs on our Constitution, their oaths, morality, honor, and integrity.

While the systemic risks of leaving the nation’s Defense Department in the hands of Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump multiply by the day, it is vital to recognize and challenge the deeply harmful rhetorical tactics they employ.

Their efforts cannot be dismissed as mere policy debate, as they amount to a calculated push to rewrite our collective history, distort American memory, and recast national policy through the lens of white supremacist ideology and authoritarian ambition.

If left unchecked by the military itself, these actions threaten to undermine constitutional governance, dismantle pluralism, and install enduring structures of exclusion and intolerance within America’s armed forces and our broader society.