QOTD -- The "Unqualified Authenticity" Of Pete Hegseth

 

"...You can see in it so many of the central tenets of Trump’s approach to governance: the contempt for expertise and traditional qualifications; the insistence that the only real qualification is authenticity—and that authenticity is somehow wrapped up in performative masculinity; the belief that sounding tough and being tough are the same thing; and the conviction that complexity necessarily reduces to weakness.

It’s all right there in the nomination of a proudly unqualified individual who frames his lack of qualifications as qualification of a different, more authentic, variety that reflects what he calls a 'warrior ethos' America has somehow lost in its infatuation with equity. And this idea has the apparently silent assent of all of the Republican members of the committee and a few, at least, enthusiastic takers.  [snip]

This is the philosophical core of the Trump era. And it is interesting to watch it migrating from Trump himself down to his cabinet. In the first term, after all, Trump’s defense secretaries and cabinet officers were, generally speaking, well qualified in the traditional sense of qualifications. The cult of unqualified authenticity was then mostly confined to Trump himself. But in the Hegseth hearing, you can see it trickling downward.

And with it trickles its accoutrements. Because like Trump, Hegseth completed the package by buffaloing his way through some substantial allegations of misconduct. Merely unqualified is apparently insufficiently manly to constitute true authenticity—in fact, Hegseth, who is not an ignorant man, may know a little too much defense policy to fully embody the cult of authentic unqualification—he rounds out the picture with disdainful and implausible dismissals of allegations of sexual assault, financial mismanagement, and alcoholism...." -- Benjamin Wittes, writing in Lawfare on "The Cult of Unqualified Authenticity" seen in the person of Fox tv personality and white Christian nationalist Pete Hegseth's nomination to be Secretary of Defense.  Let that sink in again.  

Hegseth, after some performative display of "concerns" by some Republican Senators (hi, Joni Ernst!), will be confirmed -- absent, as some would put it, finding a dead boy in his bed (and then he would still be odds- on to be confirmed by these amoral, corrupt Republicans).  It's likely to be the same with most if not all of the Malignant Fascist's other authentically unqualified nominees like Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and his mindboggling list of unqualified Ambassadorial nominees.  As has been noted, where there was some level of government expertise in the MF's first term, the only qualification needed this time around in this kakistocracy is blind loyalty to the cult leader as he proceeds, with broad immunity granted by his illegitimate Republican Supreme Court, to dismantle what's left of American prosperity, freedoms and democracy.  As someone somewhere once said, elections have consequences.

BONUS:  Paul Campos brings the receipts on "The Party of Evil."