There were plenty of big issues on the ballot two Tuesdays ago: inflation, illegal immigration, abortion, energy, education, and crime among them.

One issue that didn’t receive nearly enough attention, though, has massive implications for our national security and our standing in the world: wokeness in the military. Here’s how retired Lieutenant General Thomas Spoehr recently put it:

Wokeness in the military is being imposed by elected and appointed leaders in the White House, Congress, and the Pentagon who have little understanding of the purpose, character, traditions, and requirements of the institution they are trying to change. The push for it didn’t begin in the last two years under the Biden administration — nor will it automatically end if a non-woke administration is elected in 2024. Wokeness in the military has become ingrained. And unless the policies that flow from it are illegal or directly jeopardize readiness, senior military leaders have little alternative but to comply.

Woke ideology undermines military readiness in various ways. It undermines cohesiveness by emphasizing differences based on race, ethnicity, and sex. It undermines leadership authority by introducing questions about whether promotion is based on merit or quota requirements. It leads to military personnel serving in specialties and areas for which they are not qualified or ready. And it takes time and resources away from training activities and weapons development that contribute to readiness.

Yesterday, two Republican lawmakers weighed in with an 18-page report on the same subject. That report, Woke Warfighters, produced by Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Texas Congressman Chip Roy, says the Biden administration’s injection of leftist teachings like Critical Race Theory is harming military readiness and the safety of our troops.

“The United States military is the greatest fighting force in the world,” the report rightly begins. “It is also one of the most humble and sacrificial the world has ever known. America’s volunteer warriors regularly risk their lives not in the name of conquest, but so others may be free. They are driven by a love of country and a sense of service and honor that is increasingly rare today.”

The report continues: “Our military’s singular purpose is to ‘provide for the common defense’ of our nation. It cannot be turned into a left-wing social experiment. It cannot be used as a cudgel against America itself. And it cannot be paralyzed by fear of offending the sensibilities of Ivy League faculty lounges or progressive pundits. The world is a dangerous place, and the Biden administration’s insanity is eroding our greatest source of security in it.”

The report then points out our woke military’s worst affronts to unit morale and force readiness. Among them:

• Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s military-wide stand-down order of February 5, 2021, ostensibly for the purpose of discussing “extremism within the ranks.” This is despite the fact that the Biden administration’s own extremism working group noted the rareness of such cases: In a force of more than 2.1 million active and reserve forces, there were only 100 cases of extremism — a case rate of .005 percent, or one per every 21,000 troops.“
  
• The hiring of woke extremists within the Department of Defense Education Agency, which is responsible for operating K-12 schools around the world and in the United States. Thus, the indoctrination isn’t limited to our warriors, but is instead extended to their children.
  
• The rot within our nation’s once-prestigious service academies, which includes pushing Critical Race Theory on our best and brightest future military leaders.
  
• The implementation of a Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan within the United States Special Operations Command, which says that diversity and inclusion "are operational imperatives.” The only goal of our Special Forces should be effectiveness. Full stop. Every other consideration must be subordinate to and in service of that goal.
  
• The promotion, celebration, and funding of sex reassignment procedures, which can have months-long recovery periods, and with complete recovery taking “up to one year” for some procedures. This invariably affects force readiness and breeds resentment among units with members who won’t be called upon to deploy.
  
• The miserable failure of recruiting efforts in today’s American military, which have fallen far short of their numbers, and which we’ve covered extensively in recent months. This misguided effort features, for example, a young female recruit raised by two moms, and focuses on individual identity and self-actualization rather than the toughness, training, teamwork, patriotism, and warfighting that have always appealed to young warriors.

“The Department of Defense’s priority,” said Congressman Roy, “should be training the men and women of our Armed Forces to be a united, lethal, and battle-ready force primed to defend the United States and her interests at a moment’s notice. Instead, Biden’s woke Pentagon is using taxpayer dollars to promote blatant anti-American ideology. It has to stop. We need to end this politicization of our military and keep our Armed Forces focused on defending our national security.”

“Rather than making the case for American greatness and protecting our nation, the military is parroting woke nonsense,” said Senator Rubio. “It’s dumb, it doesn’t work, and it’s dangerous. We need to spend more time thinking about how to counter Chinese aircraft carriers and less time thinking about pronouns.”

Going forward, Roy and Rubio will push for their Restoring Military Focus Act to become law. The bill, which Roy first introduced in July 2021, would, among other things, eliminate the military’s newly installed and completely unnecessary Chief Diversity Officer. It’s a heavy lift, given the bent of our current commander in chief, but it’s a strong step in the right direction.