Hegseth Will Be the Next Cabinet Member Thrown Under the Bus
The routine is clear, and no one is safe.
As long as you please the boss, you don’t need talent or reputation. In fact, it’s a black mark to have either. Trump learned that in his first term.
· Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State, Ceo of ExxonMobile, billionaire with a ton of experience? Bad idea, way overshadowed The Art of the Deal,
· James Mattis, Secretary of Defense, a 4-star Marine General, with way too much rank and a 40-year military career. Worse idea to put that up against bone spurs,
· Attorney General, William Barr, only the second person in history to serve as U.S. Attorney General twice, once for George H. W. Bush.
Admirable, powerful, with spotless reputations, all of them. Three strikes and you’re out, miserably and embarrassingly outclassed in public, no less, for a president who never wanted or has taken advice.
Trump wouldn’t make that mistake a second time.
The first president ever to take office as a convicted criminal, Trump valued compliance before talent, blind agreement ahead of guidance, and personal flattery above all else. What he was best known for was the size of his bus and willingness to throw anyone under it.
Thus far, that included Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi, but the ice is thin in the Oval Office and Pete Hegseth is skating dangerously.
Pete’s selection as Secretary of Defense (War, in his mind, but not yet approved by Congress) seems to have gone to his head, and he was an interesting choice for SecDef. Pete left the Army National Guard, because he felt “betrayed” by a military leadership he believed was pushing out conservative individuals due to ideological reasons. He was flagged as an ‘insider threat’ due to a controversial tattoo, and left the Individual Ready Reserve in January 2024 after his duties were revoked.
For our entire history, civilian control of the military meant oversight, not reconstruction.
Reconstruction normally happened within the military, or in Congress. Hegseth is delivering something else entirely, removing legal gatekeepers, replacing senior commanders, reshaping intelligence leadership, and now reaching into the Army’s operational core.
He began with military lawyers, those who define what cannot be done. Then went after commanders, those who decide what will be done. Then intelligence, what leadership is allowed to know and, finally, the field itself. Step by step, a system that once balanced power was rewired by a recovering (we hope) alcoholic talk-show host to personally concentrate it.
For whose benefit, one might ask?
Possibly, one might suggest it cleared the traditional civilian control over our military for a more direct intervention by a commander in chief with more personal goals, the same kind of intervention Trump expected from Noem and Bondi. Our current commander has a penchant for kidnapping presidents of nations he doesn’t care for, moving the United States Navy around the world as if it was a video game, and attacking a sovereign nation such as Iran without congressional permission.
No great public failures have been cited in these firings. No battlefield disaster demanded such a scale of change. And history is clear about one thing: when systems are redesigned this completely, it is rarely for restraint.
So, it would seem Hegseth is his president’s axe man.
But the war in Iran is a catastrophe, 66% of the American public want the war ended quickly, and 60% disapprove of military strikes. Hegseth just fired the Army’s top uniformed officer, General Randy George, and two other generals. The Pentagon announced that last Thursday, without giving a reason for the departures, in the middle of the United States waging an illegal war against Iran.
Public opinion has, once again, reached the boiling point.
If there ever was a truism about the current presidency, it’s that Trump never admits to being wrong…never.
When something does go wrong, you can bet there will be an advisor, cabinet member, or senior military general about to be thrown under the bus.
A number of advisors and general officers are already there.
If past performance holds true…
…Pete Hegseth better not be wearing his best suit.