National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026

What is this bill?

• S 2296, sponsored by Roger Wicker (R-MS)

Congress is back from their month-long recess, so I guess it’s time to dive back into the fascist bits of legislation. I’m sure after all that time off we’re going to ease into the opening day docket and what do you mean Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) submitted a 1,454 page bill?so

To quote Jacob Wysocki, “I’m so pissed.” This is like assigning a 50 page essay due at the start of the school year. Yeah, I expected some summer reading, but at most it should have been Watership Down, not a version of Finnegan’s Wake that combines the most boring parts of bureaucracy with sprinkles of fascistic horror.

This episode is brought to you by Aldi brand coffee and a bubbling rage.

Right, what is this bill? It’s a spending bill for the Departments of Defense & Energy for 2026. These things are always huge and tend to be hundreds of pages of dull, by-the-book, spending guidelines. Which does make it very easy to zone out and miss the bits of fascism dusted into the margins.

Speaking of which-

What makes this bill fascist?

For the sake of ease, I’m not going to break down every single section of this bill. I’m only going to focus on the sections of the bill that are explicitly fascist. And they are:

• Sec. 547: As is fascist tradition, this section is short and very to the point. To quote directly from the bill: “The Service Academies may not consider race, sex, color, ethnicity, national origin, or religion in admissions decisions.” This aligns with the administration’s goal to shift academic opportunity to a “merit based” system, especially in regards to post-secondary education. The thing though is that the phrase “merit based” is covered in all the dog whistles that can be glued onto it. To delve deeper into the subject, I’d highly recommend reading Dr. Allison Wiltz’s essay “How White Privilege Disproves the Lie About a Merit-Based Society.” But if you want a quick summary, Dr. Wiltz sums it up perfectly:

  • “…as long as White people are the most likely to access opportunities, it's unlikely the nation will ever become merit-based. In the end, this theory of a merit-based society may sound ideal. Still, it's flawed, and there are dire consequences when this is endorsed as a true reflection of American society. There are so many examples that show that Black people are treated significantly worse than White people. Ignoring every instance of racism and claiming that our society is merit-based is cruel, a way of silencing those trying to mitigate racism by claiming it doesn't exist.”

  • And as Umberto Eco’s Ur-Fascism plainly states, this fear of difference makes ‘merit-based’ opportunities and anti-DEI policies blatantly fascist.

• Sec. 548: This section is a brief one-two anti-trans punch. It would ban trans women from “…athletic programs or activities that are designed for women or girls.” The details of the section are specifically for the Army, Navy, and Air Force & would implement the first federal trans ban in sports. To make it worse, this section also defines sex as “…a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” This would establish an official federal definition of sex that effectively erases the basic existence of trans people in the eyes of the national government. For a more detailed examination for why banning trans women from women’s sports is fascist you can read my previous entry about the thankfully failed HR 28/S 9.

• Sec. 584: This section brings up a topic I’ve yet to discuss here: military recruitment in high schools. For readers not from America, our public high schools are federally required to allow in-person military recruitment as part of receiving federal funds. The law, as it stands now, states that whenever a public school hosts a career or college fair, that the military has to be given a booth at said events. As of 2022, 13,000 schools also have students take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test, which guides the various branches of the military to decide if kids are qualified for enlistment. In my high school it was a test we all had to take, whether we planned to enlist or not. To say he least, representatives from the military showing up to your high school is treated like normal. But apparently, this isn’t enough. If passed, public high schools would be required to, at minimum, hold four events per year solely for military recruitment. It’s definitely an escalation and as the Trump administration casually threatens to invade our neighbors and sends the military to patrol cities it is hard to see this as anything less than an attempt to bolster forces that are more than willing to break the law to do his bidding.

• Sec. 706: With this section we get right back to the continued attack on trans members of the military and their trans family members. This section would ban TriCARE, the health plan for “uniformed service members and their families,” from covering the performance or the facilitation of gender-affirming surgery. It would also ban gender-affirming surgeries from being performed at any military medical facility of facility run by the Department of Defense.

• Secs. 502 & 916: The president has quite a lot of powers afforded to the position. That said, some things that could have been in the purview of the president stayed untested due to precedent, decorum, and general unwritten rules. “‘LuCkY”’ for us, Donald Trump doesn’t care about any of that. For example, in late February, Trump fired three Judge Advocates General, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chief of the Navy, and the Vice Chief of the Air Force. Technically, there is nothing in the rule book that says the president can’t do that, but there’s also no rule that says the president can fire someone in these positions before their term is completed. Typically, unless the law specifically says the president can do it, then they can’t. The main crux of Trump’s firings is that the President is defined as the commanding officer of all branches of the military, so in theory he can remove anyone he wishes at any time. Which, technically true, the firing of multiple high ranking members of the military who serve established tenures as JAGs or members of the Joint Chiefs, is a departure. Section 502 establishes a procedure for the president to remove a Judge Advocate General before the end of their terms. Section 916 does the same for members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. These sections would grant the president new and concrete powers and the assimilation of new, unprecedented powers is about as fascist as it gets.

• Sec. 920: At its most basic, this section is dedicated to the “elimination of statutory provisions relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Department of Defense.” At it’s most complex it is three pages of amendments to multiple sections of Title 10 and two previous spending bills. Since there are so many amendments, I’m just going to list the changes that this bill would make to the various sections of Title 10 & past spending bills.

  • Sec 113 of Title 10

    • Ends the yearly “…report from each military department on the status of diversity and inclusion of members and civilian employees…”

    • Ends requiring the consideration of diversity and inclusion as part of the national defense strategy

    • Ends metrics, classifications, analyses, reports, and definitions related to diversity and inclusion in the US Coast Guard

  • Sec 147 of Title 10

    • Ends the position of Chief Diversity Officer of the Department of Defense

  • Sec 573 of Title 10

    • Diversity will no longer be considered when appointing selection boards

  • Sec 612 of Title 10

    • Diversity will no longer be considered when composing selection boards

  • Sec 656 of Title 10

    • A program designed to improve diversity in military leadership via mentoring and career counseling is repealed.

  • Sec 986 of Title 10

    • Members of the military and employees of the Department of Defense are no longer allowed to state their gender or their pronouns.

  • Sec 2001 of Title 10

    • Department of Defense HR will no longer receive training about “…race relations, equal opportunity, opposition to gender discrimination, and sensitivity to hate group activity.” This section is replaced by training that focuses on “…honor, excellence, courage, and commitment.”

  • Sec 14102 of Title 10

    • Diversity will no longer be considered when appointing and composing selection boards

  • National Defense Authorization Act, 2020, Sec 529

    • Ends implementation of a five-year plan to improve diversity and inclusion in the Department of Defense

  • National Defense Authorization Act, 2021, Sec 913

    • The position of Senior Advisors for Diversity and Inclusion for all of the military branches is ended.

• Secs. 1021-24: At the ceremony for the signing of the Laken Riley Act, Donald Trump stated that he would open up Guantanamo Bay to house 30k undocumented immigrants. True to his word, 300 immigrants were imprisoned at Guantanamo until mid-March. The ACLU sued and detainees were either moved to mainland detention centers or deported. However, by July, ICE resumed imprisoning immigrants at Guantanamo and this week Human Rights Watch detailed the horrific conditions that Venezuelan immigrants survived while imprisoned. I mention all of this because Sections 1021 through 1024 are all focused on keeping Guantanamo Bay open until the end of 2026. These sections also ban building or modifying facilities in order to transfer Guantanamo detainees & bans using funds to transfer detainees anywhere until December 31st, 2026.

• Secs. 1255, 1256, and 1534: And finally, we end on increasing funding to the Israeli military. As I mentioned in the article about HR 23, any bill that supports and/or funds a genocidal & fascist nation becomes a fascist bill. As for what each section does:

  • Sec 1055: Increases funding of anti-tunnel operations from $50m to $80m

  • Sec 1056: Increases funding of counter unmanned aerial systems from $55m to $75m

  • Sec 1534: Grants $200m for the upkeep of the Iron Dome

There are also some sections that straddle the lines of fascism, oligarchy, and just regular dumb. And yes, they all involve implementing AI into the Departments of Defense and Energy. I made the decision that four AI-specific sections fall more into the category of just dumb, due to them mostly asking for reports, studies, work groups, or integrations for things like purchasing and supply line improvements. Which, not ideal that AI gets expanded, but, within this law, it is not being directed towards fascist means.

Also, on a fun note, we have Section 1053, which simply makes it illegal for the Secretary of Defense to “…develop, or facilitate the development of, any voting technology or methodology for voting in Federal and State elections.” But if Pete Hegseth wants to develop voting tech for local elections, he can keep that as a hobby.

Which Dems Voted for it?

We won’t know for sure until the first cloture vote on Tuesday afternoon, at the earliest.