Editorial: Sen. Schmitt is targeting a decorated combat vet for daring to confront racism

The Editorial Board

What is it about Air Force Col. Benjamin Jonsson’s record that makes Sen. Eric Schmitt deem him unworthy of promotion?

Is it his 900 hours of combat flight in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria? Is it his seven Air Medals? Is it his status as an Air Force Academy graduate who is fluent in Arabic? Is it his reputation as a devout Christian family man?

No, the reason Schmitt has decided to unilaterally freeze a promotion that colleagues up and down the chain of command say is richly deserved is because a few years back, Jonsson penned an essay encouraging his fellow white officers to recognize their own “blind spots” regarding institutional racism.

And, heavens, we can’t have that.

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In a new low even for the bottomless demagoguery of Missouri’s Republican junior senator, Schmitt is using his position to prevent approval of Jonsson’s promotion to brigadier general.

It stems from an essay Jonsson wrote in the Air Force Times in July 2020, in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by white Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin.

“As white colonels, you and I are the biggest barriers to change if we do not personally address racial injustice in our Air Force,” begins the 800-plus-word essay.

Jonsson, who is white and happens to have a biracial family, recounts — thoughtfully, constructively and without judgment — the difficulty he’d noticed among other white officers in discussing racial issues.

“If we do not take the time to learn, to show humility, to address our blind spots around race … then our Air Force will not rise above George Floyd’s murder,” Jonsson wrote.

That was apparently too much for Schmitt. Using the power that all senators have to individually block nominations, he put a hold on Jonsson’s pending promotion in December.

In a statement at the time, Schmitt confirmed that it was all about banging one of the hard-right’s favorite culture-war drums: diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.

“It is long past time to root out divisive DEI policies and their advocates from our apolitical military,” said Schmitt’s statement. “Leaders must emphasize unity of mission and purpose, not our immutable differences if we are to maintain our military as the greatest meritocracy in the world.”

If Schmitt has read Jonsson’s essay, he knows it directly and intelligently addresses the supposed conflict between racial understanding and mission readiness.

“A white colonel asserted that making race a focus area would cost us mission focus,” Jonsson’s essay recounts. “… He was right to point out that we cannot afford to let our mission focus slip. … However, if we buy into a false binary choice between addressing racial injustice or keeping mission focus, we give ourselves a moral fig leaf and justify our lack of action in addressing or understanding race in our formations.”

It’s important to note that Jonsson’s offense in Schmitt’s eyes — promoting racial diversity, equity and inclusion — is entirely consistent with the stated policy of the military itself. The Defense Department officially recognizes DEI as a legitimate area of focus and even has an office dedicated to the issue.

Jonsson didn’t break ranks here, in other words. Yet, as a headline on Military.com aptly puts it: “A Promising Air Force Officer Took a Stand Against Racism. Now, His Career is in Political Jeopardy.”

That career is, by all accounts, a sterling one, and includes playing a major role in the evacuation of 124,000 people from Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Schmitt — whose biography mentions not one minute in uniform — has spent his first year in the Senate primarily tweet-trolling the Biden administration and lurking around right-wing media outlets touting culture-war nonsense.

We would categorize the right’s anti-DEI crusade as being among that nonsense, but it’s actually worse than that.

Think about how far down the ideological rabbit hole a political movement has to have gone to declare (in 2024) that policies promoting racial diversity and tolerance are among society’s greatest threats.

Then think about how craven a sitting senator has to be to deploy that twisted worldview against a decorated and deserving serviceman. Missouri military veterans especially shouldn’t forget it the next time Sen. Schmitt asks for their support.

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