Grab the sides of your seat, friends, with both hands and hang on tight. We are going to play Armchair Psychologist, a parlor game which lends itself naturally to politics, particularly in the era of Trump. You will find no lack of pathological liars, narcissists and sociopaths in Trump world. Psychological issues are the feature and not the bug of this regime, which makes perfect sense when the *leader* of the cult in power is a deeply insecure trust fund baby who squandered the substantial fortune that he was left, but found his true calling in reality TV.
Trump and TV are one of the great matches in this world like ham and eggs or peanut butter and chocolate. Trump was able to play act the man he wished he could really be, a captain of industry, a business genius, one who could wheel and deal like other men could only dream. And if that fantasy had been confined to reality TV, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But Trump went one step further. He decided to turn the presidency into reality TV, found a broken and complicit GOP to collude with him, and you know the rest.
Part of Trump 2.0’s reality TV show is his cabinet. And nobody sticks out as being over his head like Pete Hegseth does — although Kristi Noem, Tulsi Gabbard, John Ratcliffe, and Kash Patel are all screamingly incompetent as well. We found that out during the SignalGate 1.0 congressional hearings. But here’s an original thought, which a number of people are starting to have at the same time: what if Hegseth knows what a fraud he is, too? What if Hegseth is in fact trying, consciously or subconsciously, to do himself in? Because he knows he can’t fake it until he makes it, he’s totally miscast and out of his depth? Ironically, he’s the new Peter of the Peter Principle concept.
You have to admit, it’s a theory that fits the facts. And it certainly would explain a lot of things, namely how in the name of all creation could Hegseth (and Michael Waltz) botch the first SignalGate communications — and then Hegseth turns right around and duplicates his own idiocy and does it again with his wife and brother?
The latest development is that Hegseth is coming under fire today for his makeup studio at the Pentagon. If that’s not a stupid move to make, one which is guaranteed to call attention to oneself, then what is? And then, to make it even worse, Hegseth says it’s “fake news” on the one hand, while on the other saying he could “have taken the money and installed tampon machines.”
Hegseth approved thousands of dollars in spending for a room where he can apply makeup before TV appearances, CBS News reported. The room was formerly used for briefings and is located next to the Pentagon press briefing room.
A Pentagon spokesperson downplayed the report, telling the outlet: “Changes and upgrades to the Pentagon Briefing Room are nothing new and routinely happen during changes in an administration.”
The room previously had minimal furnishings, according to the report, including a table with chairs, a TV, photos of former defense secretaries and a mirror attached to a door.
“The table was removed and a new chair and large mirror with makeup lighting was installed, another source said,” according to CBS News.
But Hegseth blasted the report as fake news on social media.
“1) Totally fake story. No ‘orders’ and no ‘makeup’ — but whatever,” he wrote on X. “2) We should have installed tampon machines in every men’s bathroom at DoD instead — the leftist ‘news’ media would have loved that.”
His denial comes after fierce criticism from Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA).
“I think they understand that when an individual comes into that office, talks about returning the Pentagon to the warfighters, then spends three months installing a makeup studio inside the Pentagon so he can do Fox News hits is not an individual who is serious about improving morale or readiness within the Department of Defense,” Auchincloss told CNN anchor Jake Tapper.
But wait, there’s more. Hegseth not only conceives of his job as being at the ready to pop into his makeup room and get ready for a Fox News hit, he then peacocks about that very thing.
Hegseth had booze on his mind at 8:30 this morning
“Bring warfighting back to the Pentagon.” Absolutely. And what better way to do that than with makeup brushes and mirrors? None. Not when you take into account the obvious truth here, Hegseth knows he’s a Made For Television SECDEF, not the real thing. Liz Dye, who penned the article you’ll now read excerpts from, opined: “As an actual secretary of defense, he’s ridiculous. But as the MAGA sec def on a Netflix series, he makes total sense.” Hegseth knows it, Trump knows it, all the Republicans who voted to confirm him in the Senate damn well knew it, but they were too cowed into submission to prevent it.
Over at the Washington Post, columnist Max Boot argues convincingly that Hegseth’s leadership challenges are the result of his inexperience. The obsession with “lethality” and the “warrior ethos” makes sense when you’re commanding a few dozen fighters on the ground. But Hegseth’s service as a major in the Army National Guard could not possibly prepare him to lead a bureaucracy with 3.4 million employees, much less make strategic military decisions for the entire armed forces.
Of course this guy is blasting out war plans in the group chat. He’s as surprised as anyone else to find himself there! And so, after yet another embarrassing blunder, Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, himself a former Air Force general who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, became the first Republican to point out that the secretary needs to go.
“I wouldn’t tolerate it if I was in charge,” he said on Monday, adding “Russia and China are all over his phone, and for him to be putting secret stuff on his phone is not right. He’s acting like he’s above the law — and that shows an amateur person.”
NPR reports that the White House is already searching for Hegseth’s replacement, although no other outlet has matched that reporting yet. And for what it’s worth, the president says he still backs Hegseth.
“Here we go again. Just a waste of time. He is doing a great job,” he told reporters on Monday, scoffing, “ask the Houthis how he’s doing.”
Of course Trump turns on everyone eventually — it’s a question of when, not if. He had five secretaries of defense (and six attorneys general, and six national security advisors …) in his first term alone. But for now, he appears to be digging in on Hegseth.
For the moment Trump is still publicly backing Hegseth, just like for the moment Trump was bragging to one and all that the minute he wanted Jerome Powell gone, Jerome Powell would vanish. We have not and we will not see that take place, because even Mad King Donald has his limitations. And Hegseth doing reality TV as SECDEF while the country basically goes without a SECDEF is the bridge too far. This is not sustainable and Hegseth’s daily histrionics merely underscore that fact.
No one hires a media loudmouth with a well-publicized history of alcohol problems, credible allegations of sexual assault, and negligible managerial experience to run the military. No one who actually gave a damn about the military would ever entrust it to someone so deeply flawed and unqualified!
Hegseth was hired to do for the Defense Department exactly what he did on Fox. He is essentially playing the role of secretary of defense on TV for a president who wants a vapid figurehead rather than someone competent. Hegseth’s job is to serve as a square-jawed caricature of MAGA masculinity, trolling the libs by turning every policy question into a proxy culture war. By that measure, he is doing exactly what he was hired to do: beating his chest theatrically while proclaiming that America is so back!
It’s the one thing he’s competent to do, and he’s doing it fine.
No argument there. The reality TV post of SECDEF, or SECDRUNK as Hegseth is more often called, is doing just fine. The problem is that the actual Department of Defense is unhelmed and collapsing in chaos. And that is an issue which is going to need to be addressed sooner rather than later, like the trade war, like the tariffs, like the illegal deportations, you know the laundry list.
It’s another Trump experiment that didn’t fly. Trump, for reasons known only to himself, somehow thought that a square jawed, macho character with tattoos beating his chest would be a great character to helm the Department of Defense and all that really proves is that Trump has no idea what the Secretary of Defense actually does.
For that matter, Trump had no idea what the president actually did. When Obama walked him through the office after his first election he was quoted, “I didn’t know there was so much work.” This idiocy with the DOD is vintage Trump.
Trump frequently retreats from his own worst ideas. We see it every day. We saw it just yesterday when he claimed he “had no intention” of firing Jerome Powell. I don’t think Pete Hegseth is going to survive too much longer. Unless I miss my guess, there are cliques and sub cliques in the DOD right now actually keeping things running and that will be the case until Hegseth is out the door and some reasonable replacement takes his place.
And the sublime irony may be that nobody wants that to happen more than Pete Hegseth. He knows on some level that the jig is up. He knows he’s a laughing stock at the DOD and that nobody respects him or takes him seriously. Hegseth, to all intents and purposes, is already gone. It’s just a matter now of making it official.
You’re at the top of your form, Ursula. You absolutely nailed it.
After reading this I went back and read Andrew Postman’s essay on Trump from 8 years ago,
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/feb/02/amusing-ourselves-to-death-neil-postman-trump-orwell-huxley
and I think I see the eventual solution to the world as Reality TV — it is reality itself. Trump and his gang of idiots, in their triumph, find themselves now playing with the big boys, and they are completely and utterly out of their league. As for the people who voted for this mess, they are confronting the consequences of their own stupidity. Some, though far from all, are waking up. (I strongly recommend Rachel Maddow’s broadcast ” Oops!: Trump’s first 100 days marked by incompetent screw-ups and frantic walk backs,” which you can find on line.
As for Hegseth, he, if anyone, is a creature of out-of-control impulses, so if he’s starting to “realize” anything, it’s only on an unconscious level. Same is probably true for the rest of them, they are barely conscious. If their solution is to destroy themselves, I’m not going to get in their way. As long as they don’t destroy the rest of us in the process.
I think this may be finally getting through even to the media. After all, as Postman says, the media are a business — but Trump 2 isn’t even good for business, in fact he’s a total disaster. When the media itself gets on par with reality, we’ll know we’re there.