Over the weekend, the hapless Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, reposted a video of an interview with a Christian Nationalist pastor saying that women shouldn’t have the right to vote, that sodomy ought to be recriminalized, and that slaves and masters enjoyed a mutually affectionate social relationship. “All of Christ for all of life,” Hegseth opined, somewhat cryptically, with his reposting.
Even in the MAGA era, the vast majority of American support equal rights for women and there’s no appreciable measure of support to repeal women’s suffrage. Regarding gay rights, not only is there no majority support to recriminalize sexual acts between two people of the same sex, but even in southern states a majority of voters continue to support gay marriage. And while in 21st century America only a little more than a quarter of MAGA supporters are willing to acknowledge that the legacy of slavery still affects African Americans, there’s absolutely no evidence that a majority of the country’s voters are nostalgic for the ante-bellum South.
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Almost certainly, in any other political moment, had a senior cabinet secretary, of either political party, allied himself with extremist views so grotesquely out of whack with the American mainstream, they would have—at the very least—had to issue groveling apologies; more likely, the president would have requested their resignation. But that notion of the political compact no longer holds. In fact, in many ways in this era of performative politics, the more outrageous the behavior of a senior official, the more their stock rises.
Witness Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s legally nonsensical opinion that President Obama and his top security officials had engaged in a “treasonous conspiracy” by concluding that Russia was rooting for a Trump victory in 2016. And, following on from that, Donald Trump’s definitive conclusion that Obama had committed “treason.” And, in turn, ever-pliable Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision to empanel a grand jury to investigate ex-president Obama and his senior security officials.
Witness Trump’s bloodcurdling demand this weekend of DC’s unhoused population that “The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital.” Again, I doubt there’s any political figure in the US who thinks the prevalence of vast numbers of homeless on city streets is a good development. But in a sane world resources would be invested in providing housing, in expanding mental health and drug treatment services, and in bolstering outreach programs for the homeless. In Trumplandia, by contrast, billions of dollars of federal spending on all of these are being axed. In their place, Trump is simply advocating modern-day versions of the workhouse, backed up by the full might of an increasingly federalized law enforcement apparatus, for the country’s most unfortunate and vulnerable people. “Be prepared! There will be no “MR. NICE GUY.” We want our Capital BACK,” MAGA-man bleated, conveniently ignoring the data showing violent crimes in DC are down by more than a quarter this year.
Talking of ignoring data inconvenient to the MAGA political narrative: can any intellectually honest Trump apologist justify the firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for delivering a rigorous appraisal of sluggish job growth over the summer?
Look, nobody likes it when economic data doesn’t fit the storyline that one is peddling; but government data is only valuable to the extent that it’s seen as being rigorous. Incentivize civil servants to cook the books to remain in favor with the Boss, and make it clear to them that their income, their pension, their status, their security, all depends on not providing bad data, and the result becomes a nonsense. That’s why civil servants in Stalin’s Soviet Union routinely produced rosy reports on the progress of each five-year plan despite the fact that, on the ground, the dictator’s whims were creating deadly carnage. It’s why Mao’s foibles, such as mobilizing the population to exterminate sparrows, were reported as stunning successes, despite the vast unintended consequences—not least the upending of the agricultural ecosystem through the killing of sparrows, which resulted in a famine that killed tens of millions of Chinese citizens.
By definition, Yes-men and Yes-women don’t know how to say “no.” Trump, like dictators through the course of history, wants statisticians who will dance to whatever tune he whistles. He wants law enforcement officers and judges who will look the other way no matter how unconstitutional the actions of the big boss. Hence the truly outrageous appointment of Emile Bove—one of Trump’s chief legal hatchet men, and a man who reportedly urged DoJ officials to ignore adverse court decisions—to a lifetime judicial appointment. And he wants to be surrounded by entirely unqualified cabinet officials, such as Hegseth, who owe everything to the Don, and who thus become more useful to him—precisely because without his patronage they would be out on their sorry rear ends in a New York minute—the deeper into moral imbecility they fall.
None of this will make the world a better or a safer place. But that’s never been the point. In 2025, it’s all about, all the time, fluffing the monstrous ego of one thin-skinned, bloviating, old man.
