The Trump administration has already demonstrated open contempt for Black military officers, Salon's Amanda Marcotte argued in a new analysis published Tuesday, with newly-minted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth leading the way — and a disturbing part of Hegseth's religious background that reveals the depth of that contempt.
The most recent display of this attitude came when Trump announced the removal of Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to be replaced with Air Force Lt. Dan "Razin" Caine. Caine is less qualified, but Hegseth angrily lashed out at reporters questioning his qualifications.
"General Brown had a dramatically more successful career than Major Hegseth, with four stars and a storied journey from fighter pilot to commanding the Pacific Air Forces," wrote Marcotte. "Yet Hegseth sneeringly suggested in his 2024 book that Brown only got his promotion because of 'his skin color.' Hegseth claims this insult is justified because Brown 'made the race card one of his biggest calling cards.' This appears to be a reference to Brown's willingness to publicly state both that racism exists and that racism is bad, sentiments that should be unobjectionable to anyone who is not a racist."
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To explain this attitude in Hegseth, who faced numerous other scandals amid his confirmation hearings including a sexual assault allegation and accusations of problem drinking, you need only look at the Christian nationalist church he joined a few years previously, Marcotte wrote: the Idaho-based Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.
The head pastor of that church, Doug Wilson, has not only written about his beliefs that women are inferior, but in 1996 he wrote a short book defending the institution of slavery.
"Slavery produced in the South a genuine affection between the races that we believe we can say has never existed in any nation before the War or since," he wrote. "Slave life was to [the slaves] a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes and good medical care."
He has said there were "abuses" under slavery but insists "whippings were few," falsely claimed slaves often were taught reading and writing by their masters, and said slaveowners could still be "godly" men.
"With Hegseth, there's a direct line from his bigoted religious beliefs to his bigoted writings to his bigoted behavior in office," wrote Marcotte. "Putting unqualified people in charge based on elaborate, ahistorical views on racial hierarchy isn't just unfair, it threatens the integrity of our national defense."
