Brunswick Beacon, 07.04.24
Congressman Rouzer’s newsletter often hides what he’s up to. It’s a puzzle, like Wordle, but instead of missing letters, it’s missing facts. The challenge is figuring out what he’s hiding.
Rouzer’s June 17 newsletter says, “With my strong support, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act,” which, he claims, “restores focus on our war-fighting capabilities.” Rouzer repeats the critique of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who used a Russian propaganda video to claim America’s military is “woke” and “emasculated.” If so, how does Rouzer think that happened?
My clue was Rouzer’s boast that his bill “guts the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiative.” If I could find out who adopted that initiative in the first place, I’d know who Rouzer thinks is to blame.
Thanks to Al Gore’s information superhighway, I had the answer in seconds. The 2020 NDAA, signed by then-President Trump on Dec. 20, 2019, ordered the Pentagon to implement a five-year plan to expand Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, from who it hires and promotes to how troops treat each other.
Trump did it, Republicans helped—Rouzer himself voted for it! More Republicans than Democrats voted “AYE.” More Democrats than Republicans voted “NO.” That’s right: Republicans were more “woke" than Democrats by adding DEI to the NDAA.
Trump’s Secretary of Defense, Christopher Miller, called DEI “a moral imperative.”
Trump’s Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman explained: “Diversity and inclusion make us a stronger, better and more effective military.”
Then Biden beat Trump, Democrats controlled the House and Senate, and Republicans needed an issue. DEI became another phony outrage Republicans manufactured to distract and divide us. Rouzer pretended he never supported it, hoping you wouldn’t notice.
If you want the truth about Rouzer, you have to treat his newsletter like a puzzle. But, while solving Wordle is distracting, having to figure out how Rouzer deceived you is disturbing.
Vince Amoroso
Sunset Beach