Missouri Republican Senator Eric Schmitt torpedoed the promotion of Air Force Colonel Benjamin Jonsson's promotion to brigadier general over his authorship of a noxious letter to the editor published in Air Force Times titled, “Dear white colonel … we must address our blind spots around race.” Because the Senate has recessed without approving Jonsson's promotion, it will have to be resubmitted in 2024 if the White House is in the mood for that fight in an election year.

“Senator Schmitt has long been an advocate for eradicating these DEI programs, and hopes to resolve these issues to ensure that these divisive DEI programs don’t continue to drive a wedge between military members and deepen the already existing recruiting crisis,” said Schmitt in a written statement distributed by his press secretary, Will O'Grady.

Two weeks ago, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville removed his "hold" on general officer promotions after the conference report on the National Defense Authorization Act codified Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's illegal policy of subsidizing the killing of kids by members of the Armed Forces; see Sen. Tommy Tuberville to End His Blockade of Military Nominees Over DOD's Abortion Policy. If the Defense Department leadership thought it was safe to come out from under the bed, they were wrong.

Schmitt placed a hold on the promotions of five officers due to their pimping of DEI programs to the detriment of the Armed Forces. Those officers were 

• Air Force Lieutenant General Kevin B. Schneider
• Air Force Brigadier General Paul D. Moga
• Air Force Brigadier General Scott A. Cain
• Navy Rear Admiral Shoshana S. Chatfield
• Army Colonel Andrew O. Saslav

Schmitt's questions about those officers have been satisfactorily answered, and he has lifted those holds.

What makes Jonsson stand out in the crowd is his virtue-signaling worship of DEI, using his peers as foils to make himself appear "down with the struggle," as they used to say.

In "Dear White Colonel," posted a few weeks after George Floyd died while in police custody (no amount of arguing is ever going to make me call this unfortunate incident a "killing" or "murder"), and about the time the mostly peaceful George Floyd Memorial Riots kicked off, Jonsson used his colleagues as examples of implicit bias and systemic racism.

As white colonels, you and I are the biggest barriers to change if we do not personally address racial injustice in our Air Force. Defensiveness is a predictable response by white people to any discussion of racial injustice. White colonels are no exception. We are largely blind to institutional racism, and we take offense to any suggestion that our system advantaged us at the expense of others.

To fix it, he urged they all "read or listen to the short book, “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism” by Robin DiAngelo."

Jonsson had been the subject of command climate investigations at the US Air Force Academy, where he was vice superintendent, and at MacDill AFB, Florida, where he was a commander from 2020 through 2022. Complaints about Jonsson using race/ethnicity for promotions to the exclusion of other factors like, for instance, competence resulted in the Air Force directing him to "Review the recognition program/promotions for fairness and equity to ensure it is rooted in merit and achievement (and not other factors like race/gender or personal favorites).”

The military is in the mess it is in because it allowed Barack Obama to seed the Armed Forces with men and women who were there solely to wreck the institutions. There is no evidence that Trump ever got a handle on what was going on or got control of the upper ranks of the military services who seemed to loathe America. During the Eddie Gallagher episode, Trump showed that if provoked, he could do what needed to be done (President Trump Slaps Down the #Resistance Among the Navy Brass After They Continue to Try to Persecute Chief Eddie Gallagher). Still, he didn't devote the time or attention to curing the root cause of the problem.

The GOP members of the Senate aided and abetted Obama's agenda by meekly going along with whatever list came over from the Pentagon for the rubberstamp treatment. Tuberville and now Schmitt have shown how it is done. Use votes on the promotion of officers to force the Pentagon to get the Pentagon's attention. In Tuberville's case, he didn't win his fight, but he forced Congress to address Austin's illegal policy and cave. Schmitt is picking a uniquely bad actor who is on record supporting different levels of behavior and performance based on race. There is no way this man should ever command anything. Let's hope Schmitt can make this stick if Jonsson's promotion comes back to the Senate next year.