Much of the activity on Capitol Hill right now centers on who will hold what leadership positions in the House and Senate and the progress or lack of it by the controversial nominees for cabinet posts who need Senate confirmation. Because Robert Kennedy hasn’t started doing his meetings/interviews with Senators yet, Pete Hegseth has been receiving the most attention.
Hegseth hosts a weekend show on Fox, led two small veterans organizations which he left under allegations of mismanagement, and served in the Army National Guard for 20 years with three overseas deployments. That’s his resume to be Secretary of Defense, lead 2.8 million people in the armed services, and oversee an $895 billion budget. I’m convinced that Trump says to himself, “I had no experience at being president and it turned out great, so why should experience be important for my new employees as long as they’re loyalists?”
Hegseth came to our attention initially because of the tattoos. There is a big one on his chest of what’s known as the Jerusalem Cross and one on his arm that says Deus Vult (God Wills It in Latin). Now, I try to be open-minded about cabinet nominees, and who among us doesn’t have a couple of tattoos we later regret? However, the meaning of both of these tattoos is traced back to the Crusades, which resulted in at least one million deaths in an effort to retake Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the infidels (the Muslims). Nowadays the tattoos are associated with some members of white supremacist and other right wing groups. Still, that’s circumstantial. What has Hegseth actually said?
Hegseth has written admiringly about the Crusades. He has said that people who enjoy the benefits of western civilization should “thank a crusader.” But he has a number of other concerning statements From his 2020 book, American Crusade, there’s “Voting is a weapon, but it’s not enough. We don’t want to fight, but, like our fellow Christians one thousand years ago, we must.” Here’s another: “Our American Crusade is not about literal swords, and our fight is not with guns. Yet.” There are many more.
Among the many reasons Hegseth should not be Secretary of Defense is that there is a recognized problem of extremists currently in the military and among ex-military. We don’t have data on how many of them qualify as Christian nationalists but the anecdotal evidence says it’s a lot. Hegseth does not seem likely to make addressing this problem a priority or to be objective when it rears its head among the troops. We’re pointing these things out in Senate offices and will do so until his January confirmation hearing.
And here’s a suggestion. If you think that someday a president will randomly nominate you for a hugely important job that you are 99 percent unqualified for, don’t write any books that you’ll have to defend in Senate confirmation hearings. Hegseth has written four.
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