As Hegseth flails, Democrats need to pin responsibility on the president who picked him
Pete Hegseth's reign of error at the Pentagon is a direct consequence of Trump choosing an incompetent defense secretary
It is right and natural that so many Democrats and others have renewed their calls for Pete Hegseth to resign as secretary of defense following reports of his most recent incompetence. Apparently trying to drive home the point that he lacks imagination as well as acumen, discretion, and common decency, this scandal, like the original Signalgate a few weeks ago, again involves a group chat on an unofficial platform and the wanton disclosure of classified materials (participants this time include both his brother and his wife). It is absolutely crazy that someone without a basic grasp of intelligence protocols would head the Pentagon — and this is on top of a list of disqualifications that preceded his time in the defense secretary’s office, from a lack of managerial experience to white nationalist sympathies and a vast antipathy to gender equality.
Common to many such calls is an implicit or explicit acknowledgment that it’s really, really bad for the nation’s defense department to be headed by an imbecile, on account of it hurting. . . the nation’s defense. From this perspective, calling on Hegseth to step down hits a political sweet spot, with Democrats able to stand up for the U.S. military in a way that seems beyond partisanship, while also indirectly dinging President Trump’s standing by demonstrating that he made a mistake in choosing Hegseth.
But all this fire directed at Hegseth is starting to feel more like overkill and a wasted opportunity, like a line of battleships directing their fire on an already-sinking garbage scow. The longer Hegseth’s tenure has lasted, the more the real issue has been how massively Donald Trump screwed up by picking him in the first place. After all, the defense secretary’s lack of experience and problematic past — including sexual harassment, drinking on the job, and engaging in behavior while serving in the Army National Guard that could have resulted in a court martial — were known when Trump picked him. Many, many articles attacked Hegseth for his unfitness to lead the U.S. military; there was even a time when some could dream that a few GOP senators might vote against him and sink his nomination.
Among the critiques was a thread that seemed to get to the twisted heart of why Trump had nominated him despite all the black marks against him: that it was exactly his problematic aspects that led Trump to want him at the Pentagon. Hegseth’s inexperience made him pliable, dependent on Trump’s favor and so unlikely to defy even the most outrageous orders; his misogyny and white nationalism made him a good surrogate to purge the military of women, gays, and minorities; and his habit of day-drinking made his appointment a symbol of contempt for those who expect competence, not loyalty to a would-be dictator, at the Pentagon. It was exactly because he sucked on so many levels that, to Trump, he was an ideal choice.
The story here has never been primarily about Hegseth; it has always been primarily about Donald Trump and his basic unwillingness to keep America safe — in this case, by placing atop the U.S. military a man who should never have been allowed within a hundred miles of the secretary of defense’s office. You don’t pick someone like Hegseth if you remotely comprehend your constitutional obligation to defend the republic; you pick someone like Hegseth when you want to punish the military, betray the public trust — and make America vulnerable to its foreign enemies.
Hegseth has arguably far surpassed the crapulent expectations many had of him. Signalgate was a modern classic of high-tech-enabled scandal, so clearly stupid and negligent all at once that the story took off like wildfire, capturing both public and media attention in a virtuous circle. But his complicity in the purging of high-ranking female and minority military leaders; his enthusiastic participation in sticking a shiv in Ukraine; his ignorant and offensive videos telling female soldiers they’re not tough enough; his oversight of efforts to purge Pentagon historical records of non-white, non-male service members who fought and died for their country: all of this and more have shown him to be a man of low character, and more to the point, poison to the national defense.
But this reign of ineptness is no accident — it was predicted, and more to the point, it was apparently what Donald Trump wanted by appointing this buffoon in the first place. Trump apparently wished for someone who shared his values at the head of the Pentagon, and oh boy, did he get it.
At this point, attacking Hegseth for his incompetence and calling for his resignation (or firing) risks obscuring this basic truth — that Hegseth is acting incompetently in accordance with Donald Trump’s wishes. In important ways, it feels like Democrats are inadvertently protecting Donald Trump from the consequences of his own choices. Taken in isolation, this may appear to be an ethically correct decision regarding leadership of the U.S. military and the importance of keeping the nation safe. Yet arguably even more important than preventing an otherwise-inevitable military-related disaster is building public opposition to Trump and creating as high a political cost as possible for continued GOP support for the president.
In fact, even some elected GOP officials are beginning to understand that the potential political blowback against them personally could be significant, and that it’s worth speaking out against Hegseth even at the risk of antagonizing Donald Trump. But with Hegseth’s days apparently numbered (with recent reporting that the White House is looking at replacements) despite administration protestations, and the GOP turning on Hegseth to protect themselves and the president from political damage, the time is ripe for Democrats to pin all this mayhem on the true guilty party: President Trump, for whom Pete Hegseth was an ideal wrecking ball up to the point that the press and public noticed how very much he was wrecking. Hegseth’s war on the military has been in fact Donald Trump’s war on the military.
The fact that Trump is refusing fire Hegseth is deeply damning, and would have been universally condemned as a shocking abdication of duty if any previous president had stood by such incompetence. Too many are seeing Trump’s supposed display of loyalty to Hegseth as primarily about not wanting to give his critics a win, but this obscures the broader truth of the situation: Donald Trump put a fool in charge of the Pentagon because it served his degenerate purposes. Democrats should not waste Hegseth’s remaining time in office in attacks against the wastrel SecDef, but concentrate their fire on Trump’s own malice and incompetence in appointing him in the first place. Their primary job is not to ensure that the Pentagon has a leader loyal to the Constitution and who understands how to defend America (Trump will never appoint such a person): their job is to use Trump’s bad choices to pummel the president, weaken his political standing, and destroy his presidency before his presidency destroys the rest of us.