- Several items today about the confirmation hearings for Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi; “Anonymous smears” and “I am not familiar with that statement”; competence isn’t the point, loyalty and disruption are.
- The consequences of a “woefully uninformed electorate” and whether humanity might survive existential crises that the uninformed cannot comprehend.
My initial reaction to hearings like those today of potential cabinet members is to wonder, is that the best Republicans can do? Can they find no one with more experience for their proposed jobs, no one without clouds of accusations of financial or sexual or alcoholic impropriety? No one with a clue? As this first piece notes, those are the wrong questions. Trump doesn’t *want* smart or virtuous or principled people; he wants people who are unswervingly loyal and will follow his orders without question. That they’re dumb is therefore a feature; that they cheat on their wives is a feature, because it reassures the cultists that when *they* cheat on their wives, it’s OK, because everyone does it! This is the morality of the Republican party. It doesn’t matter that they’re all incompetent.
Slate, Fred Kaplan, 15 Jan 2025: That May Have Been the Most Antagonistic Confirmation Hearing I’ve Ever Seen, subtitled “Is Pete Hegseth qualified to run the military? Wrong question.”
It was as partisan a confirmation hearing as I’ve ever seen—all the Democrats challenging his qualifications for the job, all the Republicans cheering him on. Hegseth himself was also more evasive and openly, even snidely, combative than any nominee I’ve ever witnessed audition for such a senior Cabinet post, especially one that has usually been fairly apolitical.
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Politico, 14 Jan 2025: Hegseth’s defense: Deny, blame and shrug, subtitled “‘How many senators have shown up drunk to vote at night?’ one Republican senator asked in support of the Pentagon chief pick.”
Sex assault allegations? Blame “left-wing” media.
Issues with drinking? Those are anonymous smears.
No women in combat? That’s not what I said.
Pete Hegseth used a pattern of denials, memory holes and attacking the “left-wing” media at his Tuesday confirmation hearing for Pentagon chief as he sought to counter controversial issues in his past. And that strategy may work for him — along with Donald Trump’s other troubled nominees.
And Hegseth resorted to this:
Other times he appeared almost contrite. He repeatedly said he’s a changed man. “I have failed at things in my life,” he said, “and I am redeemed by my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.”
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David Brin responded to this on Facebook today
How convenient for philanderer and Kremlin-tool P Hegseth to proclaim ‘I have been redeemed by my lord and savior…” Sen. Tim Kaine did a great job crushing the vile-in-all-ways past behavior of this magnificently unqualified person. But by far most disgusting thing to emerge from this grilling was that redemption incantation.
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The point is disruption.
NY Times, Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser under President Barack Obama, 14 Jan 2025: Hegseth Is Dangerous but Not for the Reasons You Think
To state the obvious: As a former weekend “Fox & Friends” anchor, Army National Guard officer and leader of two small nonprofits, Pete Hegseth is unqualified to run a nuclear-armed organization with a budget approaching a trillion dollars. That’s the point. Donald Trump doesn’t want someone to effectively manage the Pentagon; he wants to disrupt it.
His choice of Mr. Hegseth is born out of right-wing grievances that have been building for a long time over the failures of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of these frustrations are understandable, but the remedies Mr. Trump proposes are dangerous. His disdain for international rules could eviscerate the laws of war that emerged from the devastation of two world wars. His threats of territorial expansion could intensify a period of nationalist aggression. His tirades against enemies within the United States foreshadow MAGA social engineering and domestic intervention by the Pentagon. In Mr. Hegseth, he has found a loyal vessel for this project, someone who could channel his blend of jingoism and anger to fundamentally alter the character of the military.
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They all do it!
Boing Boing, Jason Weisberger, 15 Jan 2025: GOP Senators enjoying their Dunning-Kruger party
This sign behind a bunch of white dude senators complaining about DEI raises the question: did they hire the best person to make their sign or just another dumbass who looks like them?
… During a CNN interview, Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin forgave Hegseth’s reported alcoholic behavior by declaring he knows Senators who show up drunk to vote. This is not a good reason to confirm Hegseth, and rather suggests we need new Senators.
Also here.
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Poorly informed, or lying.
Mother Jones, Dan Friedman, 15 Jan 2025: Pam Bondi Is “Not Familiar With That Statement”, subtitled “To win confirmation, the attorney general nominee plays dumb.”
Bondi also repeatedly dodged Democrats’ questions by asserting she was “not familiar” with highly publicized events and statements made by Trump. Bondi, that is, testified that she is exceptionally poorly informed.
Does she concur with Trump’s frequent public descriptions of people convicted of attacking Congress on January 6 as “patriots” and “hostages,” asked Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). “I am not familiar with that statement,” Bondi said.
Does she agree with Trump’s infamous statement, which echoes rhetoric used by Adolph Hitler, that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country?”
“I am not familiar with that statement,” Bondi said.
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Incompetent, including Trump. Shortage of smarts. But shh, don’t say it.
Salon, Kim Messick, 14 Jan 2025: It’s MAGA’s problem now, subtitled “Living with the consequences imposed by a woefully uninformed electorate”
During the 2024 presidential campaign and after, a recurrent theme among the commentariat was that liberal Americans shouldn’t be, well, mean to Donald Trump supporters. This admonition applied to words as well as sticks and stones; there were just certain things liberals shouldn’t say to, or about, Trump’s familiars. Foremost among these was any hint that proposing to elect a man with 34 felony convictions who had attempted a coup might signal a shortage of smarts, at least when it comes to politics. This, apparently, would be a very not-nice thing to do.
Longish piece with many good points. The writer understands why some people (oligarchs, etc) would vote for Trump. Yet,
But seeing Trump as a compassionate Christian, or as a brilliant businessman and avatar of common sense, signals an epistemic collapse so profound that it removes the opinion from the sphere of rationality and into that of pure, unfiltered credulity. There is simply no way for a person whose cognitive faculties are operating efficiently to hold these views.
Because, as I’ve said in my PvCs (#12 and #13),
This is a strong statement, and I don’t want to be misunderstood. To be crazy when it comes to politics is not to be crazy in any global way. Most of the people in the Times piece are, I’m sure, perfectly competent in other areas of life — they hold down jobs, raise kids, socialize with friends, etc.. I’m sure, also, that they are perfectly nice people. But when it comes to politics they are willfully ignorant. There — I said it. I have searched unsuccessfully for any other way to describe people able to gaze upon the human wreckage that is Donald Trump and conclude that he is fit for any office that doesn’t have bars. It’s not a close call — it’s the only call.
Taking the wider view: perhaps modern society has simply become too complex for some people to follow. Perhaps there are limitations to human cognition, once lifted out of the tribal settings where the mind evolved. Yet again: there is a spectrum. Some people can’t keep up, and complain about those who do. The survival of the human race may hang in the balance of that spectrum, as humanity confronts more and more existential crises.
