So too is the military, but that effort might sputter out

According to the Guardian, of the over 700 persons charged in connection with the Capitol attack, over 80 had ties to the military, and five were acting service members. Meanwhile, the Defense Department has announced new policies intended to root out extremism, prohibiting participation in extremist activities and warning that even Facebook likes of certain content could result in disciplinary action. An Associated Press investigation in late December found that the “new guidelines do not address ongoing disparities in military justice under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the legal code that governs the U.S. armed forces,” and the U.S. military continues to have no category for hate crimes.

“The infection of extremism into our state and local police and our armed forces is a very serious concern that needs to be monitored,” Paul Eaton, a retired U.S. army major general who wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post warning of the potential for a military coup during the 2024 elections, told the Guardian. “There’s a recruiting effort going on locally, they’re going to school boards, like missionaries sent to the islands to convert people. The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are definitely recruiting.”

According to Politico, military leaders say that this effort is just ramping up. For example, they have yet to determine how many troops are actually engaged in extremist activities, or develop training for officers to identify white supremacists, anti-government extremists, and fascists in the services. The Pentagon Inspector General has only just begun an audit of screening procedures at enlistment. But the military has insisted that it will tackle the problem for decades and has continually dropped the ball once public attention moves on to other issues, with some experts skeptical that 2022 will finally be the year something changes.

“The past 40 years has basically been a history of some sort of crisis that illustrates extremism in the military and then there’s some sort of patchwork measures taken to try to deal with it,” Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League told Politico. He added the new guidelines leave it unclear how extremism will be addressed as “long as it doesn’t specifically advocate the overthrow of the government or violence against people of other races or religions… most white supremacist groups don’t advocate the overthrow of the government.”