Last-minute votes on legislative amendments are often revealing. What yesterday’s House votes on amendments to this year’s National Defense Authorization Act demonstrated is that not all members of the House Republican Conference are opposed to funding left-wing DEI priorities in the military.

Four Republican lawmakers — Representatives Mike Turner (Ohio), Tom Kean (N.J.), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Ore.), and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) — voted against an amendment that would have eliminated the position of “chief diversity officer” and prohibited the establishment of any similar position in the Pentagon. Chavez-DeRemer and Fitzpatrick also voted against an amendment that would have established a permanent hiring freeze on “diversity, equity, and inclusion jobs” in the Pentagon. Finally, five Republicans — Turner, Chavez-DeRemer, and Fitzpatrick, along with Representatives Don Bacon (Neb.) and Jay Obernolte (Calif.) — voted against an amendment that would have eliminated all DEI offices and jobs within the military generally. 

What good excuse is there for Republican members of Congress to be voting in favor of preserving DEI in the Pentagon and the armed forces? While some of the lawmakers — namely, Chavez-DeRemer, Fitzpatrick, Kean, and Bacon — represent districts that President Biden won in 2020 and face competitive races in November, DEI is not an issue on which Republicans face significant political pressure. 

In fact, progressive DEI priorities have been on the retreat for at least the past year. State-level anti-DEI legislation has seen great success, DEI job postings from private companies are on the decline, and even a few high-profile, progressive-dominated institutions are walking back some of their most extreme commitments to DEI ideology (Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, for example, announced earlier this month that it would no longer require applicants for faculty positions to submit diversity statements). 

A record of opposing tribalistic and identitarian DEI practices is also not something elected Republicans should feel the need to run away from. Democrats are not focusing their political attacks on the DEI issue for several reasons. For one, polls have shown that Republicans are more politically vulnerable over other issues; but it’s also likely that Democrats know that the more reasonable people of goodwill learn about what DEI entails, the more they oppose it. While most people are against racism and racial discrimination, they are also against tribalism, identitarianism, and the deliberate stoking of racial tensions. 

With DEI on the run, many Democrats would no doubt prefer to focus on issues more politically advantageous to them — and not highlight a commitment to maintaining and expanding DEI structures. Republicans should recognize that and hold fast against the extreme tenets of DEI ideology. Even within the Pentagon’s existing DEI programs, there is much to go on the offensive about — and certainly no good reason for voting to preserve DEI.