In true regime fashion, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth breaks out the big guns against ‘wokeness,’ one day before the U.S. military initiated action against Iran. According to a Feb. 27 article from the Associated Press (AP), Hegseth announced that military members will be banned from attending Ivy League schools, among others, starting next academic year.
According to the AP, Hegseth said, “For decades, the Ivy League and similar institutions have gorged themselves on a trust fund of American taxpayer dollars, only to become factories of anti-American resentment and military disdain.”
“They’ve replaced the study of victory and pragmatic realism with the promotion of wokeness and weakness,” added Hegseth.
The article stated there was a follow-up attempt made by the writer for details of this plan from the Pentagon, but they have not responded.
Firstly, to pretend that the Ivy League and wealthy private colleges and universities in the U.S. are somehow spurring up this woke agenda is comical at best. These are institutions known for their legacies of exclusivity and status. Getting accepted to these institutions requires a unique display of intelligence and critical thinking or an obscene amount of money; given the current state of the country, those qualities are mutually exclusive as far as I am concerned.
Secondly, I fail to see how this ban will, one, benefit the Department of Defense (DOD) and two, prevent the rise of “anti-American resentment and military disdain.”
This poses no real benefit or harm to the DOD, save for making military members look to pursue their degree or training program at a different institution. In reality, it appears to be some virtue-signaling to the ultra-conservative MAGA base of the Republican Party, with no real meaning other than to make them feel validated. They should be careful though– that kind of validation sounds like woke ideology-affirming care or worse, DEI (Don’t Expose me to Information).
Unfortunately for ol’ Hegseth here, the “anti-American resentment and military disdain” writes itself in this case. Of course, young people in the U.S. are feeling this sentiment–most of the world feels this sentiment too and rightfully so. We are currently being run by a government of fascists and pedophiles, and some of those members took it upon themselves to be both.
World War II started in 1938 when the Third Reich was on a downswing. The empire the National Socialists were looking to expand upon was starting to falter, so the regime lashed out by invading half of Europe to rebuild their robust war economy. It was effective, too–of the 12-years the National Socialists were in power, seven of them were fighting the most heinous war of the 20th century in defense of the most putrid of ideologies.
What Hegseth seems to be overlooking is that the U.S. is already there. Prices have been skyrocketing, with producer prices hitting a three-and-a-half year high according to a Feb. 27 Reuters article. On April 26, 2025, Fortune Magazine reported on a survey by LendingTree, which showed that 25% of Americans are using buy-now-pay-later apps like Klarna for groceries. We are run by governments of older Americans who just desperately cling to their own power with no concern about whether or not the system functions for young people. So, of course, there is “anti-Americanism and military disdain.” Why would young Americans care about a country that has proven time and time again that it has no desire to support its younger generations?
Now we are falling deeper and deeper into another quagmire in the Middle East, with reports of at least four American service members dead. Hegseth’s looking to prohibit service members from participating in programs for anti-Americanism is hilarious. He is completely ignoring the evidence in front of him. It is offensive to our intelligence to pretend as though we do not know the problems that are causing or would cause these sentiments. Maybe the establishment does not care, or maybe they are ignorant or oblivious to this, but this ‘rah-rah America’ treatment combined with ‘don’t believe your lying eyes’ rhetoric is getting old quickly. We need a new class and elected officials fast, because the current generation is about to drive this country into a ditch with our generation’s blood on their hands.
Timothy Fitzpatrick can be contacted at
