"I decided to give the movie a shot. To my surprise, it was fantastic. But while the original Top Gun presented an American nation that matched the mood, position, and stature of the United States in the reality of 1986, the sequel portrays an America that is deeply at odds with the national reality in 2022.

The America depicted in Top Gun: Maverick is not the America we live in today. Rather, it is what America likely would have been if nearly every catastrophic policy decision of the last 40 years never occurred. Perhaps where the movie’s America diverges most from the current reality is in its representation of a military that embodies a culture of excellence and aptitude. The very existence of a “Top Gun” program for the highest 1 percent of pilots with the best flying and dogfighting abilities is a testament to a military that rewards skill and risk-taking, one that seeks out courageous people with natural ability and refines it. In Top Gun: Maverick, the new pilots are trained to execute a very difficult, very dangerous, very precise military strike. They all have amazing skill in flying the planes. But Maverick (their teacher) demands perfection.

This is not the American military of today. Today, we lose wars to third-world countries that don’t even have an air force. How did this happen? Well, the brass has to devote a lot of attention to things like creating maternity flight suits. The Pentagon is more concerned with the “inclusivity” of the military than its lethality, a condition dramatized by their lifting of a ban on transgendered troops. The Army has obligations to create gay-recruitment videos, to say nothing of its important visual design work in order to celebrate LGBT pride month.

Not convinced these things have an effect on the excellence and aptitude of American military force? What about the lowering of physical-fitness requirements for recruits, a decision even enlisted men admit has a negative impact?"

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/top-gun-and-american-decline/