Pete Hegseth Polices the U.S. Military to Ensure Political Loyalty to … Charlie Kirk!
The Trump administration is already policing the political ideas of foreigners applying for visas to the United States, blocking entry for those who criticizes Israel—and now blocking anyone who criticizes slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is taking that a step further, banning criticism of Kirk for all members of the U.S. military.
NBC News reports:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth…and other senior Pentagon leaders posted messages on X this week calling on the public to report any posts that could be interpreted as negative about Kirk or unsympathetic about his murder.
Many social media users have heeded the call, assisting Hegseth and the Pentagon in finding and flagging posts. Dozens of service members and civilian Pentagon employees have had their posts highlighted and collected under the hashtag #RevolutionariesintheRanks.
Some of the posts in that collection don’t necessarily condone or mock Kirk’s murder but have been viewed as unfavorable—including one that read, “I don’t give a s--- about Charlie Kirk.” …
One U.S. military officer said troops know they are not allowed to condone political violence, but being fired for criticizing a person, particularly a civilian who has no ties to the military, is extremely rare.
“We can’t criticize the commander in chief, but I can’t remember anyone ever telling me we can’t say anything critical about a civilian like this. He was not in our chain of command or anything,” the officer said.
The purpose of all of these policies is to make the U.S. government itself into an instrument of domestic partisan politics, establishing the precedent that the government can wield its power to ban criticism of any private, partisan political figure who is an ally of this administration.
The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.
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