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The Atlantic: Donald Trump's Most Dangerous Cabinet Pick
The Atlantic - (archived: https://archive.ph/14phs ) Donald Trump’s Most Dangerous Cabinet Pick
Pete Hegseth considers himself to be at war with basically everybody to Trump’s left, and it is by no means clear that he means war metaphorically.
By Jonathan Chait
November 21, 2024, 12:33 PM ET
For a few hours, Pete Hegseth’s nomination as Secretary of Defense was the most horrifying act of Donald Trump’s presidential transition. Surely the Senate wouldn’t confirm an angry Fox News talking head with no serious managerial experience, best known for publicly defending war criminals, to run the largest department in the federal government. Then, in rapid succession, Trump announced appointments for Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The appearance of these newer and even more aberrant characters, like a television show introducing a more villainous heel in its second season, muted the indignation over Hegseth.
Obscured in this flurry of shocking appointments is the fact that Hegseth’s drawbacks are not limited to his light resume or to the sexual-assault allegation made against him. Inexperienced though he may be at managing bureaucracies, Hegseth has devoted a great deal of time to documenting his worldview, including three books published in the past four years. I have spent the past week reading them. The man who emerges from the page appears to have sunk deeply into conspiracy theories that are bizarre even by contemporary Republican standards but that have attracted strangely little attention. He considers himself to be at war with basically everybody to Trump’s left, and it is by no means clear that he means war metaphorically. He may be no less nutty than any of Trump’s more controversial nominees. And given the power he is likely to hold—command over 2 million American military personnel—he is almost certainly far more dangerous than any of them.
Hegseth began his involvement in conservative movement politics as a Princeton undergraduate. He then joined the Army and quickly developed a profile, when not on active duty, as a budding Republican spokesperson. He testified against Elena Kagan’s appointment to the Supreme Court (on the grounds that, while dean of Harvard Law School, she had blocked military recruiters from campus in protest of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”) and lobbied in favor of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy. As the Republican Party’s foreign policy orientation changed radically under Donald Trump, Hegseth’s positions changed with it. But his devotion to the party remained constant. After stints running the advocacy groups Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America, and a failed Senate campaign, he finally settled in at Fox News, where he joined a chorus in support of Trump.
Along the way, Hegseth has written five books. The first, extolling Teddy Roosevelt's legacy, revolves around ideas he has since renounced after converting to Trumpism. Another is simply a collection of war stories. The other three, all published in the past four years—American Crusade (2020), Battle for the American Mind (2022), and The War on Warriors (2024)—lay out his worldview in florid, explicit, and often terrifying detail.
A foundational tenet of Hegseth’s philosophy, apparently carrying over from his Roosevelt-worshiping era, is a belief in the traditional masculine virtues and the potential for war to inculcate them. Hegseth maintains that boys require discipline and must aspire to strength, resilience, and bravery. His preferred archetype for these virtues appears to be Pete Hegseth, whose manful exploits either on the basketball court (he played for Princeton) or the battlefield are featured in all three books.
/snip
Pete Hegseth considers himself to be at war with basically everybody to Trump’s left, and it is by no means clear that he means war metaphorically.
By Jonathan Chait
November 21, 2024, 12:33 PM ET
For a few hours, Pete Hegseth’s nomination as Secretary of Defense was the most horrifying act of Donald Trump’s presidential transition. Surely the Senate wouldn’t confirm an angry Fox News talking head with no serious managerial experience, best known for publicly defending war criminals, to run the largest department in the federal government. Then, in rapid succession, Trump announced appointments for Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The appearance of these newer and even more aberrant characters, like a television show introducing a more villainous heel in its second season, muted the indignation over Hegseth.
Obscured in this flurry of shocking appointments is the fact that Hegseth’s drawbacks are not limited to his light resume or to the sexual-assault allegation made against him. Inexperienced though he may be at managing bureaucracies, Hegseth has devoted a great deal of time to documenting his worldview, including three books published in the past four years. I have spent the past week reading them. The man who emerges from the page appears to have sunk deeply into conspiracy theories that are bizarre even by contemporary Republican standards but that have attracted strangely little attention. He considers himself to be at war with basically everybody to Trump’s left, and it is by no means clear that he means war metaphorically. He may be no less nutty than any of Trump’s more controversial nominees. And given the power he is likely to hold—command over 2 million American military personnel—he is almost certainly far more dangerous than any of them.
Hegseth began his involvement in conservative movement politics as a Princeton undergraduate. He then joined the Army and quickly developed a profile, when not on active duty, as a budding Republican spokesperson. He testified against Elena Kagan’s appointment to the Supreme Court (on the grounds that, while dean of Harvard Law School, she had blocked military recruiters from campus in protest of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”) and lobbied in favor of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy. As the Republican Party’s foreign policy orientation changed radically under Donald Trump, Hegseth’s positions changed with it. But his devotion to the party remained constant. After stints running the advocacy groups Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America, and a failed Senate campaign, he finally settled in at Fox News, where he joined a chorus in support of Trump.
Along the way, Hegseth has written five books. The first, extolling Teddy Roosevelt's legacy, revolves around ideas he has since renounced after converting to Trumpism. Another is simply a collection of war stories. The other three, all published in the past four years—American Crusade (2020), Battle for the American Mind (2022), and The War on Warriors (2024)—lay out his worldview in florid, explicit, and often terrifying detail.
A foundational tenet of Hegseth’s philosophy, apparently carrying over from his Roosevelt-worshiping era, is a belief in the traditional masculine virtues and the potential for war to inculcate them. Hegseth maintains that boys require discipline and must aspire to strength, resilience, and bravery. His preferred archetype for these virtues appears to be Pete Hegseth, whose manful exploits either on the basketball court (he played for Princeton) or the battlefield are featured in all three books.
/snip
The Atlantic
@theatlantic.bsky.social
Pete Hegseth has published three books in four years. Jonathan Chait spent the last week reading them—and concluded that Hegseth is almost certainly the most dangerous of Trump's cabinet picks. theatln.tc/s24Z8tF4
November 21, 2024 at 2:28 PM
@theatlantic.bsky.social
Pete Hegseth has published three books in four years. Jonathan Chait spent the last week reading them—and concluded that Hegseth is almost certainly the most dangerous of Trump's cabinet picks. theatln.tc/s24Z8tF4
November 21, 2024 at 2:28 PM
https://bsky.app/profile/theatlantic.bsky.social/post/3lbi74xj4gc2f
3 replies
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