How Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is taking the U.S. back 50 years | Opinion

I’ve said Pete Hegseth is the least-qualified defense secretary ever.

I was wrong. He’s the most-qualified.

My mistake was comparing him to men whose job was to protect the United States. But Hegseth is working to re-establish white supremacy.

And the Carolinas’ four U.S. senators are his collaborators. That includes Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the first Black man elected to the Senate from the Deep South since Reconstruction.

They’ve raised no real objections to Hegseth, making it clear they either agree with his actions or aren’t much bothered by them. It’s one of the key components of the success of white supremacy, the tacit approval and quiet acquiescence of non-white supremacists.

White supremacy isn’t only about anti-Blackness. It’s about attacking any form of equality that threatens the idea that white people — actually, only a designated group of white people, not all — are superior, that their way of seeing and living in the world is always best.

It’s the result of efforts to lie about or suppress the reality of this country’s origins, a tradition that has convinced far too many people that speaking honestly is hating rather than loving this place.

For readers able to handle uncomfortable racial truths: Donald Trump chose Hegseth to take this country back 50 years. He’s not qualified to be defense secretary in any other way, and has already proven so. Y’all, the dude accidentally shared real-time information about an impending U.S. bombing run and was not relieved of duty — because his job isn’t about making us safer.

Hegseth has been paying dividends for Trump, beginning with his recommittal to honoring white supremacist traitor Confederate general Braxton Bragg’s name in February by taking Fort Liberty’s name back to Fort Bragg while saying it was for Army Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a soldier who fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

Under Hegseth, the armed services also refused to recruit from a program that identifies and cultivates highly-coveted Black engineers. He banned nearly 400 books of mostly African-American authors, including one by me, and even removed Department of Defense web pages on the legendary Jackie Robinson and Native American World War II heroes before being forced to reverse course.

Now he’s renaming Naval ships, starting with Harvey Milk, a gay rights activist and former Navy lieutenant, whose name is emblazoned on an oiler ship. An unnamed defense official told Military.com that Hegseth purposefully made the announcement during Pride Month.

In a statement, the Pentagon said Hegseth is “committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos” and added that “any potential renaming(s) will be announced after internal reviews are complete.”

There is no greater warrior in American history than Harriet Tubman, the former slave who not only led the enslaved into freedom but helped the U.S. defeat the Confederate States of America. No matter. CBS reported that Hegseth is reconsidering her honor as well as those the ship names of labor rights activist Cesar Chavez and abolitionist and suffragist Lucy Stone, among others.

Then there’s Medgar Evers. He volunteered for the U.S. Army during World War II despite the white supremacy he faced in Mississippi. He served a logistics role when American troops stormed the beaches of Normandy because white supremacy denied Black soldiers from serving in combat roles. Evers then fought white supremacy as a civil rights activist. A white supremacist murdered Evers then bragged about it after all-white juries failed to reach a verdict and freed him.

Evers’ country began acknowledging his sacrifices in 1963 with the military honors in Arlington National Cemetery he had earned, and in 2011 with the christening of the USNS Medgar Evers. But white supremacy might reach into the grave to put that Black man in his place one last time.

This story was originally published June 10, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "How Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is taking the U.S. back 50 years | Opinion."