The Atlantic

Why Military Chiefs Are Condemning White Supremacy

The U.S. Armed Forces have had troubles with extremists enlisting in the past, and they don’t want it to happen again.
Source: Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Since the president of the United States cast his lot in with white supremacists in his #NotAllNazis moment this week, the nation’s military service chiefs have responded with full-throated statements rejecting extremism and intolerance.

These statements have alarmed many. “If we lived in a different sort of country,” Fred Kaplan wrote in Slate, “this could fairly be seen as the prelude to a military coup.”

And I have some sympathy for this alarm.

, I am growing increasingly worried about the politicization of

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