Hegseths All The Way Down
This article was originaly published on January 14, 2025
Liars, drunks, and cheats have a long history of leadership in American government. The only novel element of today’s politicians is how brazen and public their reprobate behavior is. While JFK’s legacy and death have made him a larger-than-life figure in history, we all know of his regular philandering and unfaithfulness to Jackie. However, it’s hard to imagine JFK following in President Trump’s footsteps if his affairs had similarly erupted into the public’s eye. It’s doubtful that JFK would have gone to war with the media and women, hiring crack-pot lawyers to litigate the issue in public. Despite the differences between the 1960’s and today, JFK knew the American public would balk at a leader who strayed so far and so regularly from home. So prevalent was this assumption that JFK’s secret was safe-guarded by a male-dominant national press, his confidants, and even his wife. However, as Trump is set to start his second term in a matter of days, it is clear the American public no longer seems interested in the moral quality of our leaders and seem unaware of the harm that will do to the Union.
In the past, the default assumption was that the American public demanded, if only ostensibly, moral leaders committed to ethics. They wanted people who respect the office they held as national leaders. Now, power and the ability to hurt people on the other side seems to be the most valuable traits to be had by those holding important offices. This is best exemplified but the oft-cited support of Donald Trump by American evangelicals. This has been talked about incessantly, so I will skip the details here. Yet it does perfectly demonstrate the point. A major block of voters who claimed morality as a core component of their ideals quickly turned away from that standard. All it took was convincing them they could have access to power and a shot at punishing their enemies.
Democrats are also guilty of running after power. Senator Nancy Pelosi and her family stepped in towards the end of Senator Dianne Feinstein’s life to help care for her as she remained in her senate seat after being away for months due to a serious illness. While on one hand, this could be seen as close friends being supportive in a time of need, the raw politics around Feinstein’s health at the time makes that hard to believe. Feinstein’s vote and position was important for the senate at the time, and according to Rachael Bade of Politico, if she was able to finish out her term, it would be advantageous to then-Rep. Adam Schiff bid for her seat. Pelosi was an active supporter of Schiff to take over the spot and is well known for getting her way. She stubbornly downplayed Feinstein’s health issues, despite it being reported that Feinstein had suffered brain swelling and cognitive impairment during her illness. She further proclaimed calls for Feinstein’s early retirement based on her failing health were sexist.
Feinstein’s recovery was lackluster. In one episode she explained to reporters she had not left Washington all but had been working and voting without interruption. Nancy Pelosi’s own daughter, Nancy Corinne Prowda, was installed as a personal caregiver for Feinstein during this period, publicly guiding and calling the shots around her care. The arrangement was made even more curious after it came to light that Nancy Pelosi had signed, as a witness, a power of attorney document so Feinstein’s daughter, Katherine Feinstein, could represent her mother in ongoing lawsuits. This showed Pelosi was more involved in Feinstein’s daily life than expected. Added together it is hard to see how Pelosi was not manipulating the situation, hoping to keep a friend in office for the sake of long-term political benefits – even at the expense of that friend’s care and comfort. When Feinstein died that year, the booming accolades remembering her life did not question Pelosi’s close involvement at the end. Despite talk in the press, no groundswell of alarm from the rank-and-file materialized. Adam Schiff went on to win Feinstein’s empty seat.
The idea that today’s America does not worry about the moral character of its leaders should be terrifying. While it may seem old-fashioned or naive to demand moral character as a quality of American leadership, having ignored it for so long has already had terrible consequences for the county. Trump, perhaps the most immoral leader the country has had, will continue that trend with his second term. Already he has endorsed Project 2025, an initiative that looks to dramatically change the shape of our government through a substantial increase of presidential powers. The program threatens to destabilize the checks and balances woven into our system by allowing the executive office to gut federal agencies of career personnel and replace them with ideologs and loyalists. The aim of these changes hope to install a permanent far-right regime fueled by a Christian Nationalist ideology. Looking to another issues, Trump’s war on immigrants represents a much larger threat to the country than many believe. While the main victims will be non-citizens and their families, there is no reason to think citizens may not be swept up in the persecution based on their ethnic backgrounds or countries of origin. His declared war on the Fourteenth Amendment to kill birthright citizenship is at least a rhetorical step towards the idea that a person’s US citizenship can be up for debate.
While Democrats do not represent the clear and present danger Trump’s movement does, they lack the urgency or conviction needed to seriously resist it. Take, for example, the blatant profits Democrats pull in from public trading. While few would say out-loud that some Democrats are so successful in the stock market because of knowledge gathered in their positions – looking over the profits the earn from investment portfolios makes it hard to draw a different conclusion. They have resisted calls to ban members of congress from some forms of trading. This practice shows elected Democrats have a vested interested in keeping things as they are – if only to protect profits. Providing real resistance to Trump would necessarily require taking stances on issues and reforming parts of the government. Plugging loopholes and creating stronger laws around day-to-day governance and ethics will be a crucial step in confronting the Trump administration. Is there any indication Democrats are willing to cut off these kinds of benefits while confronting Trump’s administration?
“At some point, people will need to reverse course and start demanding a moral core to our leadership.”
The people who will be responsible for changing this dynamic are average citizens. At some point, people will need to reverse course and start demanding a moral core to our leadership. That is, of course, if we want to maintain current freedoms and expand the benefits of citizenship in the future. This does not mean that people need to agree about abortion, gay marriage, or any other of a thousand other issues. Instead, it means we must demand those in government are able and willing to practice the basics virtues we can all agree on. Honesty, prudence, justice, respect, patience, among others. These are basic we should demand and uphold in those we elect beyond simple agreement on policy positions. Those are the safeguards that need to be in place to combat the worst outcomes we’re capable of.
If we fail to do this, we will see Trump and those after him fill our government with people like Pete Hegseth. Hegseth, who appeared before congress today for a confirmation hearing, is hoping to become top man at the Pentagon. While a veteran of the National Guard with deployments overseas, there is nothing on his resume that qualifies him for the position. Trump put forward Hegseth because of his success as a contributor to Fox News and his loyalty to Trump’s movement. In his personal life he has been accused of sexual assault, describes himself as a serial cheater, and treated the women in his life so poorly that his mother wrote him a letter condemning him as an abuser.
Even if Hegseth is denied the posting as Secretary of Defense, he represents the kind of person Trump and others in his administration hope to fill our government with. These will not be people whose lives show concern for or development of a moral life. They will not show a willingness to serve in a way that benefits their fellow citizens. Hegseth represents the kind of people willing to take a job they are unqualified for to enact a ideological agenda. Hegseth understands he does not have the skill or experience to lead the Pentagon. He understands his real job is to push through ideological change in the military and crush opposition to the Trump agenda. He has no experience running large organizations, no serious knowledge of national security issues, and lacks the firsthand experience of running the military from a top-level position. What he does know how to do is be a loyalist.
If he is appointed, it almost guaranteed that Hegseth will make choices that will cost the lives of service members. That will happen because Hegseth’s leadership will not be driven by a moral understanding of what to do in the moment, or how to best run things. It will happen because his real goal will be showing results for a movement and ensuring the approval of people who, fundamentally, do see the military as a tool to be used, not as an organization of people willing to defend our nation and lay down their lives.
Unless we change the kind of leaders we are electing to office today, in both major parties, we will find ourselves with a government being ran by people like Hegseth. Trump and others will fill positions high and low with their moral doppelgangers – people only worried about winning and what best serves their own goals. The only antidote for this is to push people with strong moral cores into positions that can affect decision making and counteract this process. We must elect people who will not be tempted to go-along-to-get-along, but will fight, even when it might lose them status or harm their self-interest. Otherwise, it will be Hegseths all the way down.