MAGA Culture Warriors

 On 13 July the House passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA); this is the annual act to fund the military for the coming year. Although there is always grousing about the bill, this has been a bipartisan exercise perennially because it goes to the heart of what the federal government does that no individual state can do – provide for the defense of the nation. The bipartisan part ended this year.


Kevin McCarthy, the weakest House speaker ever, bent over backwards to allow the crazies in the Republican caucus to lard the NDAA up with amendments that provide for their culture war but do nothing to provide for the common defense. As Heather Cox Richardson wrote in her Letters from an American,


Republicans added amendments that eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the Defense Department; end the Defense Department program that reimburses military personnel who must travel for abortion services; bar healthcare for gender transition; prevent the military academies from using affirmative action in admissions (an exception the recent Supreme Court decision allowed); block the Pentagon from putting in place President Biden’s executive orders on climate change; prevent schools associated with the Defense Department from teaching that the United States of America is racist; and block military schools from having “pornographic and radical gender ideology books” in their libraries.


As a prominent crazy of the Freedom Caucus said after it passed,


“We are not going to relent, we are not going to back down, we’re not going to give up on the cause that is righteous,” Representative Scott Perry (R-PA) said.


Note the use of the word righteous. Merriam-Webster defines righteous as “acting in accord with divine or moral law; free from guilt or sin.” Pardon me, but the law that operates in our country is defined by the United States Constitution. It is not and never has been defined by a religion. I realize Perry is popular with the MAGA cult but reading his bio and his positions on foreign policy, immigration, and climate change gives one pause. Perhaps his name will arise in connection with the likely indictments coming up on the 6 January insurrection.


I hope cooler heads from both parties in the Senate correct the travesty of the current NDAA. There is no place for the sort of nonsense appended to it by the right wingers in the House.

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