Lighten Up, Francis
“No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals.” That was the key message during what Pete Hegseth called his “State of the Force” address, in which he also accused “the anti-American losers in our media” of treason for reporting negative stories about the Iran war, “that every red-blooded American is proud of,” and proclaimed that, “the ideological clowns are out, the patriotic cowboys are in, with testosterone testing on top.” (I kept waiting for Sgt. Hulka to walk onto the stage and say, “Lighten up, Francis.”) Given the state of the war he pushed inside the administration, Hegseth might want to spend less time worrying about low T and more time worrying about the lack of Ws. But while some of his strategies haven’t worked against our enemies, they’ve been very effective at remaking the military in ways that may take a long time to undo. Many military leaders and troops have been forced out under Hegseth’s leadership, and the ones who remain have to sit through speeches like this. Tom Nichols in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Pete Hegseth, Idea Guy. “He eagerly sowed division between the U.S. military and the society it serves … Hegseth’s speech proved, yet again, that he is manifestly unfit for his job. America can endure a bloated Pentagon with some generals in make-work jobs. It can stand to trim the waste in expensive programs and root out incompetent bureaucrats. What a democracy cannot—and should not—tolerate is a secretary of defense who trucks in propaganda and wants the people who serve in America’s military to be the armed instrument of his own resentments and biases.”
+ Foreign Policy’s Emma Ashford: Everyone got Pete Hegseth wrong. “It is astounding how a man initially dismissed as a drunken buffoon—or a television talking head—has nonetheless so profoundly shaped the direction of the Trump administration’s defense policy. It is likewise notable that he remains so influential. Hegseth would appear to be the obvious sacrificial lamb for a president looking to off-load blame for the war in Iran, yet he remains ascendant. Clearly, in the eyes of the White House, he is doing something right. Here, the explanation may be simple: Trump sees himself in Hegseth. From angry culture war posturing to his willingness to challenge the media and an obsession with image over substance, Hegseth’s qualities are fundamentally Trumpian, suited to a television personality and not a public servant. Indeed, more than anyone else in the Trump administration, the self-styled ‘secretary of war’ is uniquely well-positioned to mimic Trump himself in this way. Yet for the rest of us, the costs inflicted by Hegseth will not be limited only to this presidency.”
+ “Pete Hegseth has held onto his job by projecting a tough guy image, but his relationship with Republican lawmakers has never been worse.” NYT (Gift Article): Hegseth Talks Tough as Republican Doubts About His Leadership Grow. Who are we kidding? There’s only one Republican whose support Hegseth needs to maintain, and he loves all the attacks on media members, fatties, trannies, beardos, weirdos, wimps, and radicals (even if he meets the criteria for several of those categories).
