The most likely answer is that they’re afraid of Trump, but the larger problem is that the MAGA movement—including its supporters in the military and the Defense Department—is based on fear and insecurity, a sense that American culture is hostile to them and that Trump is the protector of a minority under siege. Many members of this movement believe that the “left,” or whatever remains of it now, is engaged in a war on the traditional family, on masculinity, on American capitalism, on Christmas and Christians. They see DEI as one of the many spiritual and moral pathogens that threaten to infect fine young men and women (especially white ones) and turn them into sexually decadent Marxists.
Tom Nichols hits this issue right on its head. Why is the DOD so worried about DEI? Heck, why is anyone worried about it?
Of course, the argument that some MAGAs will come back with as they want to purge the government of anything that could be misconstrued as ‘DEI’–which they don’t understand–will be this: “Well, you lefties wanted to rename all those military bases named after Confederate war heroes!”