Pete Hegseth and the Bullsh*t Patriotism of MAGA America

So, he accidentally texted war plans to a journalist on a social media app.The Secretary of Defense.Of America.The second in the chain of command behind the President.The person responsible for defense policy, spending, and operations, including the military and its personnel.That guy recklessly and inadvertently divulged the most sensitive military information to Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic on a group chat like it was a fantasy football draft.It is the kind of wildly unfathomable abuse of power, endangering of national security, and betrayal of our Military members, that in any other iteration of America would bring universal outrage, bipartisan condemnation, and swift removal. But here’s the comprehensive and exhaustive list of ways Trump, the Republican Party, its complicit media, and its rank-and-file voters will hold Secretary Hegseth accountable:…I hope this list has been helpful.Trump has already chosen to malign the Atlantic rather than call for Hegseth’s resignation.Republicans in Congress and Fox News hosts have tossed off pathetic “nothing to see here’s.”And Hegseth himself, rather than rightly showing contrition, expressing regret, and begging the American people to forgive his immaturity and carelessness—chose to attack the journalist for doing his job: a concept Hegseth has no comprehension of.And the fact of that matter is that Pete Hegseth isn’t qualified to oversee a garage sale, let alone helm the most sophisticated and important fighting force in the free world. He has no business having such power or influence and this kind of disaster is only surprising in that it occurred so quickly, and yet in the wake of a truly historic Constitutional f**k-up like this, these supposed America-loving zealots are suddenly silent and asking us to move along.Seriously, these performative patriots need to take off those big red hats and retire them.That whole MAGA nonsense has reached its expiration date. All their flag-waving histrionics and hand-wringing anthem outrage have proven to be nothing but fake news.All that America First chest-bumping and God Bless America showy piety they've spent the past decade peddling looks largely ridiculous at this point.They have been fully exposed.We see it. The world sees it.Oh sure, we kinda expected as much. Ever since 2016, we could see that with each passing day, they started to sell off their souls in tiny little parcels; a million moral compromises and a continual finding of a deeper bottom. It was and is sickening to behold.With every vile word about women that they excused, with every act of thuggery they overlooked, with every bit of race-bait they gobbled up, with every hate crime they turned away from, with every vicious Tweet they normalized—they gradually lost the plot.Lots of things kept falling to the wayside in these people on the way to "Making America Great Again": empathy, decency, compassion, honesty, equality, goodness.When we brought these things to their attention, these folks tried to wrap it all in Old Glory, apple pie, and fireworks—but we had a hunch that all that past greatness they said they wanted to get back to, was simply whiteness.And now, these Proud Boys and American Girls are turning their heads at a gross disregard for the sovereignty of this nation and for the courageous, selfless men and women whose support they plaster all over their bumpers and yard flags.And it’s essentially b******t.This is all sickening but at least it's clear now. We know what we're dealing with. When you ignore catastrophic malpractice like this, you've sorta said all you have to say, haven't you? There's no gray area there, no red, white and blue veneer of patriotism that can make this right, no star-spangled distraction to parade in front of it all.Pete Hegseth in this role, is a clear and present danger to this nation, and the fact that MAGAs don't give a damn about it makes them reckless and irresponsible, and yeah it makes them traitors by association.Republican voters should be joining the massive choir of those rightly calling for the Secretary’s resignation, but they will reserve their breathless fervor policing public bathrooms, banning History books, and rounding up brown-skinned people at church picnics.If someone is fine with Pete Hegseth’s gross disrespect of our Military and our troops, they may as well admit they simply don’t give a damn about America.The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnpavlovitz.substack.com/subscribe