The lowest white man

This (gift link) is some really good reporting:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is blocking the promotion of four Army officers to be one-star generals, a highly unusual move that has prompted some senior military officials to question whether the officers are being singled out because of their race or gender.

Two of the officers targeted by Mr. Hegseth are Black and two are women on a promotion list that consists of about three dozen officers, most of whom are white men, senior military officials said.

Mr. Hegseth had been pressing senior Army leaders, including Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll, for months to remove the officers’ names, military officials said. But Mr. Driscoll, citing the officers’ decades-long records of exemplary service, had repeatedly refused.

Earlier this month, Mr. Hegseth broke the logjam by unilaterally striking the officers’ names from the list, though it is not clear he has the legal authority to do so.

I wonder what could possibly be going on here? One theory is that Pete Hegseth, Medal of Honor winner an utterly unqualified chat show host with barely any military experience or any other life accomplishment of note, unless being a massive drunk counts, is enforcing standards of True Meritocracy, against the scourge of DEI.

Here’s another possible theory:

This article is based on interviews with 11 current and former military and administration officials who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters.

The frustrations with Mr. Hegseth’s approach came to a boil last summer during a heated exchange between Ricky Buria, Mr. Hegseth’s chief of staff, and Mr. Driscoll about a separate promotion.

Mr. Buria chastised the Army secretary for selecting Maj. Gen. Antoinette R. Gant, a combat engineer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, to take command of the Military District of Washington, said three current and former defense and administration officials familiar with the exchange. The command provides security and performs ceremonial duties in the nation’s capital, and its commander often appears alongside the president at Arlington National Cemetery.

Mr. Buria told Mr. Driscoll that President Trump would not want to stand next to a Black female officer at military events, the officials said.

Donald Trump, who is even less qualified to be president than Pete Hegseth is for his current job, got elected president because of white supremacy and misogyny, which is to say the social theory that the lowest white man, aka Donald Trump, is worth more than any non-white man, or any woman, period.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s 2017 essay making this point remains one the very best explanations for the entire Trump phenomenon.