Today’s confirmation hearing of Donald Trump’s Defense pick Pete Hegseth revealed the limits of Manichaean politics, positioning the machine in opposition to those raging against it. Democrats, however, don’t have the upper hand in this dynamic â and they keep forgetting why.
Perhaps the most instructive moment came when Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin pushed back on a line of questioning from Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who interrogated Hegseth about his reported heavy drinking and adultery. âHow many senators have shown up drunk to vote at night?â Mullin exclaimed. âHow many senators have gotten a divorce for cheating?â
This represents the hearing â and perhaps the theme of American politics right now â in a nutshell. Why? Because Mullin is absolutely correct, but his defence of Hegseth isn’t a vindication of the nominee either. That is to say: both sides have a point, but neither has an answer. While Kaine, Kirsten Gillibrand, Mark Kelly and other Democrats wax sanctimonious about character and qualifications, their feigned concern appears to the public like a breathless defence of a broken system.
Republicans inveighing against drunken senators and military drag shows are right on those counts, and the public knows it. But, equally, Democratic efforts to frame Hegseth as an outsider are exactly what Trump’s base â and therefore Republicans â want.
This is the trap in which the country finds itself locked. The system is in need of disruption, but not every disruptor is qualified and not every defence of the system is wrong. Unfortunately for Democrats, though, the public is so desperate for change that people are now more than willing to err on the side of the disruptors than the status quo. The party’s challenge is to question its opponents without becoming tied to a system which isn’t fit for purpose.
This is exactly why Republicans won’t waver on Hegseth. It’s highly likely that, behind closed doors, senators such as Joni Ernst of Iowa remain concerned about some of Hegseth’s background, whether it’s his pledge to upend the Pentagon bureaucracy, his lack of faithfulness to women, or his dearth of large-scale management experience. But Trump has forced the GOP to reckon with institutional distrust, so Republicans are at least more willing to publicly back attacks on institutions. That still sounds crazy to the Beltway establishment, even though it sounds like common sense everywhere else.
Indeed, Ernst was subject to an intense public and private pressure campaign for appearing to hesitate after Hegseth’s nomination. After her pivot, the entire party increasingly projected total unity on every nominee. Fellow picks Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will surely receive substantive questions from some Republicans. There are unknown variables that could derail their confirmations but, for now, they’re barrelling ahead with the party’s support while Democrats struggle to find room for bipartisanship.
Hegseth’s hearing does not bode well for Democrats. It’s unlikely most Americans will base future votes on this grilling, but if the party’s strategy at the hearing reflects its general blueprint after the second election of Trump, it has a serious problem. It’s not easy to question disruptions without defending broken systems, but it’s possible. That’s not what Democrats did today.
Now, they face weeks of scenarios in which they’ll face the spotlight while questioning Gabbard, Kennedy, Russ Vought and Kash Patel. Their approach to Hegseth suggests Democrats are set to perform poorly. They will be forced to defend intelligence agencies, Big Pharma, and the federal bureaucracy as they seek to undermine critics who are largely correct in their diagnoses of the problems, even if their proposed solutions are much more controversial.
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SubscribeYeah, that pretty much sums it up. The beltway insiders, the bureaucrats, the lobbyists, are being forced to contend with cranks and unqualified rubes because they failed as a ruling class to maintain the public trust and respond to the public demand. As far as I’m concerned, they are getting what they deserve even if the American people continue getting the shaft from new and different failed polices. The reality is that the people have so little faith in the system that a lot of them probably wouldn’t care if Trump threw darts at a phone book to pick nominees because politicians have frittered away the public trust on one failure after another for decades now.
If Republicans are afraid to shoot down Pete Hegseth out of a fear of being primaried by angry Trump voters who have demanded change, that’s good. If they’re afraid, maybe they’ll listen. They should have chosen to start listening to the people a long time ago before things got so bad, before the public became angry enough to elect an agent of chaos like Donald Trump….twice. If they had, they might not be facing the unbridled wrath of an angry populace now. They have little choice now but to accept the people’s judgement and try to weather whatever storms it brings. Whatever is coming, it can’t be stopped now.
Democrats, too, will have their reckoning. The day is coming when they either face their own internal uprising, their own version of Donald Trump, or they are rendered irrelevant for an entire generation as the Republicans were when FDR came to power. The bottom line is that they are an establishment party in a country where trust in institutions has been in free fall for decades. The identity politics and grievance based arguments that they have used to divide and distract the people are failing. They are losing minority votes critical to their coalition. A party made up of only affluent urban professionals living in sheltered enclaves and gated communities is not politically viable.
Whatever damage Trump and his people do out of a lack of qualifications and skill, whatever disasters come out of their haphazard attempts to give the people the change they demand, I will personally lay all of it at the feet of the political establishment that failed to come up with their own solutions and allowed Trump to come to power. It should not have come to this, but it did, and somebody has to answer for it. Blaming the disruptive influences, the outsiders themselves, is a cop out. Blaming the people is something that shouldn’t even be contemplated by politicians in a democratic system. There’s no saving this either, no way to restore the people’s lost faith in their government except through the crucible of disruption, change, and reform. The only way forward is through. All the establishment can do but wait for the hammer to fall. To paraphrase the famous Spider-man line, those who have great power will ultimately bear most of the responsibility. History is seldom kind to failed ruling classes.
Maybe we should key Hegseth fail before making pronouncements about his failure.
Ang it all started with with FDR and then the Kennedys
“…. or his dearth of large-scale management experience.”
Can you name any member of the British Cabinet, including Starmer, that could meet any of the standards that are meant to apply to Hegseth?
Or in the US, how many of Biden’s Cabinet had any private sector experience at all? Zero, or close to zero.
Two-tier standards?
If all these disruptors are confirmed in their positions, I hope they have behind them an army of competent political insiders and bureaucrats who know how to get things done. Otherwise all we’ll get is four years of disruption.
The most telling thing about Hegseth is that his mother doesn’t even like him. That’s not something you see everyday.
Not true. Pete Hegseth’s mother is completely behind his nomination. Democratic senator Tim Kaine referred to harsh comments by Pete Hegseth’s mother, but she made those years ago in the heat of the moment in a private email that she immediately regretted and retracted.
She still said them, and she still meant them. Most people’s mothers wouldn’t say anything like that about their sons if they had been convicted of being a serial killer.
Oh just give it up. You are talking bullshit.
How many mothers do you know?
…more a question of how many fathers he’s got, no?
The military has ALWAYS had Drag Shows. They have nothing to do with woke
The underlying issue lies in the perspective that the military should primarily serve as a tool for defense rather than for settling global scores. What some are labeling as “disruption” is, in reality, a fundamental shift toward reorienting the militaryâs purposeâfocusing on defense rather than acting as the worldâs “cleanup crew,” enforcer, or interventionist force.
This change represents a departure from the long-standing practice of policing the world, rebuilding societies, or removing regimes in an attempt to instill democracy. After all, no American would tolerate an external power attempting to alter their system or beliefs, so it seems unrealistic and sort of entitlement to expect other nations to accept such interference.
This shift challenges the established norms, which makes those in positions of powerâThe Establishmentâfeel as though they are losing control when in fact it is only changing the foundations that are no longer working in the world or for American’s safety. However, this change could ultimately benefit the people, as no country, including America, should act as the worldâs police.
That era is coming to an end.
Little of the hearing had to do with the changes in the nature of warfare between states- changes on display in Ukraine at the moment, and for which the American military’s preparation is questionable. Was he the man who could lead a DoD to deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan? I’m not sure we know anything more about that.
Being an old dog has certain advantages. Like living long enough to experience life, albeit life in the USA, for long enough to read a lot of critiques of humanityâs vagaries. I keep reading that âeveryoneâ is all âfed upâ with the status quo. And even though all the noise from the right has been so indoctrinated as not to be really helpful, there is the fact that most of these people who wondered behind the rightâs propaganda firewall did so because they were angry. Or fearful of something.
It seems that there are various types of fear and anger. For instance there is within the alt-right a group of persons that when given shit about various issues, express an undercurrent theme that loudly surfaces. And that is Donât mess with my 401-K. Anything that improves my investments is good aka Trump, and anything that harms my investments is bad aka environmental laws etc. Now even though all these folks are making a lot noise about some very scary changes, for example the 2025 project, and possibly succeeding, underneath all that noise this echelon of the American public does not want real change at all, they just want those entities that cause the profit margins to be narrower to go away, like the poor, public education and Medicare for all, etc. It is readily acceptable that climate change is a hoax, assuaging any and all guilt they want to deny.
So it is really frustrating to me to read blanket criticism stating the masses are demanding change, because these folks are lock step with the Industrial complex and are screaming drill baby, drill at the top of their lungs. And 70 percent of the billionaires are right there with them .
Finding some common working thread that allows our civilization to thrive and emerge into states beyond our current quagmire is going to take some timeliness and extraordinary ingenuity. And very likely a good deal of pain.
I agree with you, but the âestablishmentâ failed not because of what they hate, but because of what they love. It is not so easy to get a person to stop loving what they love. Many have walked the plank for just this reason.
I think its time to recognise that the last Obama-Biden governments shouldn’t be labeled under the term Democrat it was a gang of vandals and as a consequence the voters with the capacity of reason finally threw them out. Hopefully long enough for reestablishing what the USA was before. Then yes maybe those who would use the term Democrat for the party they serve under, would be safe again. If elected to protect and maintain the best way forward.