- GOP Rep. Paul Gosar complained that there are too few white people enlisting in the US Army.
- He blamed "woke marxists" according to an email, seen by Vice News.
Republican Rep. Paul Gosar complained that there are too few white people enlisting in the US Army in a funding email seen by Vice News.
"The number of white recruits has plummeted," Gosar wrote in the email, which had the subject line, "dismantling woke marxist ideologies."
He complained that the declining rates were "a casualty of this cultural skirmish that has left our Army beleaguered and besieged by 'woke' ideologies."
"This is not merely a crisis of numbers," Gosar said in the email, per Vice. "It is a crisis of spirit."
Marxist doctrines had "sapped our Army's vitality, leading to dwindling ranks and dispirited hearts," Gosar wrote.
Gosar, Rep. for Arizona's 9th congressional district. is known for his far-right views and has been accused of having links to White nationalists and Capitol rioters.
The idea that the military has become too "woke" and concerned with liberal values has become a pervasive one among the far-right, due to changes such as the adoption of LGBTQ+ inclusive policies.
Far-right memes have circulated depicting US soldiers with rainbow flags or referencing pronouns, implying they are weaker than their global counterparts, Vice noted.
Gosar was apparently responding to a recent report by Military.com which said that there had been a sharp decline in white recruits.
The report said that there wasn't one clear reason for this demographic change, but said partisan attacks from conservative lawmakers and media framing the military as "woke" might have contributed to the problem.
Other factors include an overall recruitment slump and broader trends in the labor market for men, which has seen men in their prime working age increasingly disengaging from employment.
Another possible factor cited by the outlet is that young white Americans make up about 75% of fatal opioid overdoses each year, of which there were around 80,000 in 2021.