One of the more regrettable aspects of Barack Obama’s time in office was his use of the vaunted U.S. military not as a deterrent against America’s foreign advisories but rather as a means for forcibly imposing leftist ideology into the ranks to spread its acceptance more broadly across the nation’s landscape. Obama essentially used the U.S. military as a petri dish for disseminating what has now become known as woke ideology.

Joe Biden, who in many respects is the third term of the Obama presidency, has continued this practice. For example, a recent social media message from the U.S. Marine Corps’ official social media page celebrated “Pride Month” and offered a “tribute” to “honor” gender dysphoric military personnel. As Mark Alexander observed: “This post has nothing to do with Marine readiness and everything to do with undermining unit cohesion — the esprit de corps that is the USMC’s foundational fabric. If mass eye-rolls among the Marine rank and file had a sound, the thunder from outside the Beltway — those not kissing Biden’s brass — would be deafening.”

But Biden is not merely promoting gender confusion in the military ranks; he’s also committed to furthering that divisive, racist, and fundamentally anti-American ideology known as critical race theory.

Using CRT’s metrics of race and gender as opposed to individual merit when choosing nominees to fill leadership positions, Biden has tapped General Anthony Cotton to head U.S. Strategic Command. As with his choice of a Supreme Court justice, skin color played an important role in Biden’s decision.

Unfortunately, skin color is also a significant matter in the mind of General Cotton, who has repeatedly espoused woke rhetoric and has sought to implement CRT ideology where he has been in command. Back in the summer of 2020, then-Lt. Gen. Cotton decried America’s “systemic racism” following the death of George Floyd in an article pushed in Air Force Magazine. “Here I am as a lieutenant general in the United States Air Force,” he said. “When I see what happened to Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks — and the list goes on and on — it’s visceral to me.” He then ridiculously asserted, “That could be me.”

That’s called preaching divisive identity politics, and it shows the reasoning capacity of a grade schooler. Where was a clear recognition of personal responsibility and specific circumstances that underscore every single one of those individuals’ experiences with law enforcement? More bluntly, why was the specific truth of each circumstance dismissed in favor of a narrative that collapses under scrutiny and facts?

Cotton is far from Biden’s only woke nomination. The Air Force’s first black chief of staff, Charles Q. Brown Jr., has been tapped to replace Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley. Stripes magazine recounted a Brown speech in which he said he could “barely contain his rage … that the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution ‘that I’ve sworn my adult life to support and defend’ have not always delivered ‘liberty and equality’ to all.”

Rather than recognizing and celebrating how far the U.S. has come over its history in realizing its founding ideals, these woke individuals appear hell-bent on falsely painting this great nation as a racist cesspool, hardly distinguishable from 1930s Germany. Rather than expressing humility at the honor and privilege of leading in the defense of this nation, they promote an ideology that attacks its very foundations of individual liberty and justice.

To play off Obama’s infamous statement, Biden is on the wrong side of history. He’s chosen to go to war against the very ideals that served to make America the greatest nation on earth. And like his abysmal economic and energy polices that are ruining the economy, his woke social policies promulgated throughout the military will result in a diminished and dangerously ill-prepared fighting force.