The U.S. military’s oath of enlistment and Congress’ oath of office begin the same way: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same … .” As the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol illustrated, white nationalism is a threat to the Constitution that both service members and federal lawmakers swear to defend.
When Sen. Tommy Tuberville was asked about enlisted white nationalists, he claimed they’d been wrongly labeled by the Biden administration. “I call them Americans,” he said.
But despite the Defense Department’s concern about the “potency of planned violent attacks” white nationalists with military training could launch, when Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala, was asked Monday about enlisted white nationalists, he claimed they’d been wrongly labeled by the Biden administration. “I call them Americans,” he said. The shockingly irresponsible response, from a senator who serves on the Armed Services Committee, is another example of Republicans playing with the fire that threatens to burn America down.
Four days before Tuberville’s remarks, four members of the Proud Boys, three of them U.S. military veterans, were convicted of seditious conspiracy for their roles in the attack on the Capitol. Another veteran and Proud Boys member was found “guilty of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and robbery involving government property.”
Similar examples abound. Five members of the Oath Keepers convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6 attack were also veterans. The group’s leader, Stewart Rhodes, is a former Army paratrooper. In January, three active-duty Marines were charged with breaching the Capitol. And the day after Tuberville tried to normalize white nationalism, a federal judge gave a four-year prison sentence to a former Navy reservist with a reported fondness for Hitler. Months earlier the judge had found him guilty of obstructing Congress’ counting of the electoral votes to certify the 2020 presidential election results.
Tuberville equated white nationalists with “Americans” in an interview Monday on a public radio station in Birmingham. Wednesday, in a statement to Al.com, a spokesperson offered a “clarification” of what the senator said:
“Sen. Tuberville’s quote that is cited shows that he was being skeptical of the notion that there are white nationalists in the military, not that he believes they should be in the military. He believes the men and women in uniform are patriots. Secretary Austin seems to think otherwise, subjecting them to extremism training as his very first act in office. That cost us four million man hours.”
It’s worth pointing out that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s first day in office was Jan. 22, 2021, just 16 days after some active-duty members, some reservists and many more veterans were in the mob that stormed the Capitol. Though it wasn’t clear at the time how many current or retired military members were involved, we did know already that Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, had stormed the Capitol. And been shot dead by a U.S. Capitol Police officer.
Mandating extremism training after an attempt to halt the peaceful transfer of power was what any defense secretary sincere about his oath to defend the Constitution would have done.








