What Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson Don't Understand About War
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his generals arent the only people who think that the more ruthless, hypermasculine, and reflexively brutal an army is, the better it performs on the battlefield. That view also has fans in the United States.
Last year, Senator Ted Cruz recirculated a TikTok video that contrasted a Russian military-recruitment ad, which showed a male soldier getting ready to kill people, with an American recruitment video that told the story of a female soldierthe daughter of two motherswho enlisted partly to challenge stereotypes. Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea, Cruz tweeted sarcastically. The Texas Republican is not alone in trumpeting a Putinesque ideal. Several months earlier, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson had similarly complained about a supposedly woke Pentagon, which he likened to the Wesleyan University anthropology department. By promoting diversity and inclusion, he insisted, military leaders were destroying American armed forces, supposedly the last great bastion of merit in the country. More recently, Carlson has complained that Americas armed forces are becoming more feminine, whatever feminine means anymore, just as Chinas are more masculine.
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Just as the ability to absorb information is better than lunkhead hypermasculinity in a modern army, diversity and societal integration also bring major advantages. As Ukraine has become more diverse and tolerant, its army has benefited. In contrast with Putins homophobic military, the Ukrainian armed forces include LGBTQ soldiers who have incorporated unicorn insignia into their uniforms. The valor of these soldiers, and the rallying of the Ukrainian people around a vision of a tolerant and diverse society, has led to an overall increase in Ukrainian support for gay rightsand it underscores the belief that everyone has a role to play in the countrys defense.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/russia-ukraine-woke-military-tucker-carlson/671569/