IN-DEPTH: Conservatives Wonder Who Navy Is Trying to Recruit With Petty Officer Drag Queen ’Stunt’

It was a rough summer for drag queens, with uproars over public library story hours and bruising boycotts against Jack Daniel’s for promoting drag shows in its advertisements routinely making news.
Meanwhile, conservative across the country, as they prepared to vote in 2022 midterms, were expressing discomfort—and for some alarm—over what many saw as a seemingly-pugilistic promotion of transgender and LGBTQ+ rights, vowing to restore “normalcy,” if possible, with their ballots.
It was also a rough year for military recruiting. Of three of the U.S. military’s largest branches, only the Air Force met its 2022 recruiting goal. The Army missed by 15,000 and the Navy fell shy even after lowering its quota, increasing its enlistment age to 41, and relaxing other standards….}