One by one, every archetype of defeated liberalism took the microphone and tried, vainly, to trip up Hegseth. First, there was the constipated Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), who dutifully, like a child reading an apology letter drafted by his mother, huffed and puffed his way through the approved talking points of the left-wing portion of the military industrial complex.
He also previewed an argument which several other Democrats would echo, lamenting that he’d voted for every other nominee for Secretary of Defense, but couldn’t vote for Pete Hegseth. To which those of us in MAGA respond, “the fact that someone like you was willing to vote for any Republican nominee is precisely the problem, Sen. Reed.” Most entertainingly of all, when the chairman of the committee, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) refused to allow two rounds of questions, Reed emerged once more to offer a hangdog whimper about norms and the spirit of the committee. Someone please let him go back to sleep so he’ll stop making us want to.
But Reed, at least, seemed to realize the fool’s errand he was on. The same could not be said for what we can only describe as the “woman yelling at a cat” caucus, represented in this case by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
Not that we mind, of course. Between Gillibrand shrieking at Hegseth that he wasn’t allowed to say such “brutal and mean” things about women in the military, Hirono’s audition to play the prosecutor in the world’s worst Chekhov adaptation, Duckworth’s arrogant and high-handed attempt to humiliate Hegseth over his resume, and Warren’s badgering smugness, America got a veritable buffet menu of loathsome ex-wife archetypes to choose from. Probably the greatest moment in the whole rigamarole came when Warren nonsensically tried to frame Hegseth as a hypocrite because he wants to bar generals from serving in the defense industry for ten years, but wouldn’t commit to the same thing for himself. Hegseth’s response went instantly viral and drew laughs from the rest of the room.
And it was thanks to the Real Housewives-esque performance of these four Senators that the real story of the hearing emerged: Pete Hegseth was essentially refusing to bend the knee to wokeness and, in so doing, was putting a flag in the back of the ideology. Thank God.
Let’s be blunt: for all the babble about Pete Hegseth’s qualifications – and it’s true, he’s not a general, or more accurately, a TV general – the thing that clearly really upset all the Democrats was twofold: Firstly, there was Hegseth’s skepticism that women should serve in combat roles. And secondly, there was his abiding (and justified) contempt for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs in the military.
So let’s take them one at a time. Firstly, when it came to women in combat, the Democrats tried to spin this as Hegseth believing that women shouldn’t be in the military at all, a point which was ably debunked by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) during his questioning, but the truth is, they find it viscerally offensive that Hegseth believes that women shouldn’t be on the front lines getting shot at. To which idea, we have just one question: “What?!”
No, seriously. In what universe is that a sign of disrespect toward women? Service on the front lines is not a job which many people, a lot of men included, are cut out for. It’s grueling, dangerous, and a magnet for post-traumatic stress disorder. Military preparedness is a necessity, make no mistake, but it’s a tragic one, something Hegseth would know as a combat veteran. If anything, the refusal to put women into the most dangerous loci of military action is a sign that our society cherishes them too much to put them through that. It’s only sexist in the sense that old-school chivalry is sexist. That is to say, it’s what the feminists would call “benevolent sexism,” which strikes us as an oxymoron, but hey, we didn’t take gender studies in college. Granted, Hegseth has backed off his hardline original approach, and argued – correctly – that if women meet the standards required of male soldiers and want to serve their country in combat, then they should be able to. But the mere fact that he once held a belief that used to be official US government policy until just over ten years ago was enough to trigger the Democrats on the committee into hysterics.
And on one level, we understand why. After all, until the unprecedented vibe shift following last November’s election, merely suggesting that in-group differences exist was a cardinal sin in the ersatz religious movement that was wokeness. Democrats probably expected to be able to crucify Hegseth on that point alone, only to find – like embarrassed vampire hunters – that their holy symbols and sacred cows no longer function. Which brings us to the other part of their opposition to Hegseth: his desire to undo the influence of DEI on the military.
Indeed, so offensive did they find this that even the otherwise soporific Sen. Reed was able to stir himself into indignation about it. He tried to argue – incredibly – that DEI goes back to the integration of combat units during World War II, a point on which Hegseth set him straight very capably. Because the truth is, DEI – which by its very nature demands the lowering of standards and the obviation of merit -- has no place in civilized society at all, let alone in the military. We do not have time as a society to litigate how many snipers use which pronouns. As former US Senator and founding father of the conservative movement Barry Goldwater said (ironically, in arguing against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which Hegseth also opposed), “you don’t need to be straight to shoot straight.” Quite right, and we would add that you also do not need to belong to an arbitrarily-designated marginalized group to shoot straight, make good military strategy, or do any of a million other things which the finest military on planet earth requires. To rise in the military, all you should have to be able to do is protect Americans and defeat America’s enemies. There is no simpler test of meritocracy than that.
None of the Democratic moaning about Hegseth – or any of President-elect Trump’s other nominees – will do anything to damage his chances at confirmation, of course. The Republicans on the committee were rock-solid in their friendliness, and the full Senate caucus is likely to be just the same. But in refusing to buckle in the face of the bitter-end partisans of the woke order of the past, Hegseth made himself more than just the potential leader of America’s physical defenses. He also established himself as an able defender against America’s ideological foes and against the epidemic of mental illness. And for that alone, he deserves not just confirmation but celebration.
