Amid and beyond Hegseth's failings and lack of qualifications for SecDef lie Trump's utter and dangerous moral and intellectual inability to grasp the scope, scale, meaning, and consequence of the Presidency and of the positions he gets to fill as President.
The above feels both trivially obvious and necessary to state.
Vice is the conservative moat because the conservative movement has spent decades making it so.
Evil done while doing pursing good is good, after all, as Conservative Catholic intellectuals made clear when defending the torture of our captive enemies, and as SCOTUS affirmed in Trump v. USA.
Once Pat Buchanan declared war on American culture, and Jonah Goldberg explained that all fascism was actually liberalism, the conservative license to embrace vice to defeat evil was absolute.
In this moral milieu, adultery is proof of virility and attractiveness. In this moral milieu wealth and alleged intelligence substitutes for virtue. In this moral milieu Biden's attending church every week is proof of his perfidy.
The Bulwark is one of a small handful of media outlets I consider to be worth a darn these days. Thanks for your consistently insightful writing, Jonathan Last.
I think Bill Clinton’s presidency was the first time I saw people on the other side who were truly enraged by him and his position. I remember anger towards Reagan, but nothing like what Clinton brought out in his opponents. They started investigating him & Hillary before he became president and they’re still investigating them today. A lot of government money has been spent with nothing to show for it.
I do not need a grand unifying theory for why bad people do bad things. Or why Trump/GOP supporters continue to back increasingly crappier Trump surrogates. I dont think rationalizing why someone does something stupid or even at cost to themselves is very useful since I believe each supporter has their own rationalizations, each as stupid and petty as the others. Hegseth is a twerp. A moron. And a monster. Wrapping himself in very public displays of "Christian" symbols and opening professing his commitment to Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior is very obviously performative. No one is fooled about his morals. If they support him, they just dont care. WHY they dont care, the subject of JVL's theory, just isnt interesting to me. I am justified in holding them to their decision because we in the electorate are all adults. We have agency. We can disagree with dear leader. Most of on the left, most Dems, disagree regularly, its what makes it hard to compete with the stifling, oppressive nature of the MAGA-fied GOP. I believe any of the GOP (electeds and voters) that toe-the-line on manifestly unworthy nominees do so by willingly surrendering to the whims of Trump, and in doing so, earn my scorn. We are all in this together, we are all Americans. And to see 1/3 of the adults willingly, if not eagerly, choke down Hegseth, Gabbard, RFK or that mook Patel, hardens my position, that they WANT my scorn. And that does make me feel bad, because my kids are 26,23 and 21 and we are leaving them such a utter f@cking mess.
"Too many of us know next to nothing about the systems that undergird our lives." And therein lies the problem. At least some of us have the humility to realize that.
This is a theory I have seen from some Trumpers. They like that he represents crime and ability to do things that are illegal because that is what is needed to shake up our society right now.
Regarding JVL's theory of the Republican embrace of vice, I don't disagree that they like, even extol, vice and violence in their champions, but I think it's far simpler than believing that, because they are guilty of crimes, they will not hesitate to hurt their opponents. It's tribal dynamics, but not at some superficial level, it is about accessing the core of supporter's identity as an active, valued member of the tribe.
As frightening as it sounds, Republican's embrace of anti-qualified candidates can be explained through the pro wrestling practice of the new "kayfabe," a willing suspension of disbelief in which performers, promoters and (most important for this discussion) the audience all "keep kayfabe," i.e., they become participants in the performance. In original kayfabe, the fans were merely spectators and pro wrestlers were never out of character. The "Faces" (AKA Baby faces - good guys) are always good guys and the "Heels" are always bad guys, in and out of the ring and anywhere, anytime in public. This has not changed much with new kayfabe in that anyone aligned with your guy, Face or Heel, is automatically his ally and therefore you root for them, no matter what and you believe in their worth (if not virtue) because they are on your guy's team. Thus play actors such as Hegseth, Gabbard, Patel and RFK Jr. become heroes, merely because they are on your guy's side. Likewise, alliances in pro wrestling can switch at any time, thus John Kelly, Jim Mattis, Bill Barr, Mike Pence, etc. can go from being heroic allies to traitorous enemies in an instant without a second thought.
In new kayfabe, the audience is a part of the spectacle, they are active players in the performance. Another feature is the "smart fans" vs. the "marks," i.e., those who understand it is all a performance vs. those dupes who believe it is all real. Most fans think they are smart and it is the others who are the marks, allowing them to feel superior while still cheering on their hero. They see the tactics behind the performance but this invests them even further into the spectacle because they are now an insider with the knowledge that it's all part of a greater strategy (despite the obvious grift), but now they are on the team. Interestingly, in the realm of political kayfabe, pundits also play a crucial role. They focus not on the substance, practicality, costs and harms of positions taken by a candidate (e.g., mass deportation, tariffs, prosecuting political opponents, leaving NATO, invading Greenland), but on the strategic messaging they are sending, the "message within the message.". These messages become projective tests upon which disparate parts of the politician's base can find the message they want to find (saving American jobs for Americans, vs. support for White supremacy and xenophobia). Further, pundits don't ask how politicians will keep their promises (lowering prices, eliminating the debt while cutting taxes, cutting programs without any pain, deporting tens of millions of people, etc.), instead they try to expose the "true meaning" behind the (not serious) position. This framing certainly explains much about the failure of professional pundits to take Trump seriously, to the endless frustration of his opponents.
The "moat" certainly is a helpful metaphor for the safety shield around Trump's nominees, but it is a part of the larger fiction, the political kayfabe, of the era of Trump. Except that folding chair we're being hit with is real.
My going theory is that the TrumpGOP effectively runs on how mad they can make the other side, the more anger a nominee illicit from their perceived enemy ' liberal tears effectively' the more power it has in the movement. So Hegseth has the advantage of enraging the left more and therefore the moat is a moat of vice but more because of the response it illicits. And when you think about it folks like Kavanaugh prove the rule, it was only after the contervsery built up that he became a hero of the right.
What we do with that is a really rough question, because when your oppisition effectively feeds off you standing up for what's right does that create a perverse incentive to be quiet? We should continue to stand up for what's right, but I do think it's correct that MAGA feeds off it, and therefore the bigger transgression the more heat from the left it draws and the more MAGA will support the most horrific things.
Late to comment but read and have been thinking about this piece. I've been considering this for a while too because it's disturbing to me. I'm not sure the exact reason for embracing vice as they have. I can see JVL's Conservative Inc response playing out "Liberal elites have cried wolf so many times over the years that Republican voters no longer believe any allegations of bad behavior." But I wonder if they are just trying to be the opposite of anything and everything traditional politics used to be - where good character was expected and if it fell short there were consequences. Who wouldn't want to live in a consequence-free world? Well me and people around me, because we still believe in right and wrong, decency, and no one being above the law, but MAGA is seeking to build a consequence-free world because their corrupt leader needs it and so far has attained it for himself. Maybe some Republicans were reluctant at first to embrace it but seeing how it has worked for Trump, have climbed on board. That, and wanting to be the opposite of traditional liberal values as a backlash to social progress I suppose. "Stick it to the Libs."
Your piece on vice is spot on. It makes want to cry. And I've been talking for several years about how we have several generations who have, for the most part, always had the infrastructure of our society in place and have no clue that we need to continue to pay taxes for upkeep. I've begun describing this as thinking you need to shower once, and then you're clean the rest of your life. That seems to be breaking through.
"After all: If a guy is willing to rape a woman, surely he can be counted on to visit destruction on Democrats, or woke generals, or whoever." I think you nailed it right here.
Growing up on a farm and raising and preparing all our food, and tending our animals, which we used for food, gave us a unique knowlegde of working for our meals and the literal price of eating meat (seeing the "harvesting" firsthand). It was a deliberate choice by our depression-era parents to teach us, but also because we had a large family and had to make do with what we had. Living in other countries and experiencing seasonal eating has reinforced that. Given the times we live in, with our abundance, I know we are blessed in having things anytime we want them, but then, are we really?
I’m late to this section but what it made me think about is something I have noticed quite a bit in my personal life as someone who is almost 40. By now you have seen people “fail” in life in some way, most often this means something like divorce. And the most common denominator between those who I have observed in my personal life who have experienced divorce is they are MAGA. I know it’s just an anecdote but without fail, of everyone I know who experiences divorce, one of the spouses (the man usually) is MAGA. What this means on a larger scale I don’t know but it’s something I’ve observed to be true.
OMG.... I can't rec this highly enough! I've been saying for days... maybe weeks, even... that the Dems are going after the wrong issues with Hegseth! Not only is he ludicrously unqualified for the job, he also wrote a book in which he states that 'leftists, progressives and Democrats' are internal enemies and suggested this needed to be addressed by the military!!
Amid and beyond Hegseth's failings and lack of qualifications for SecDef lie Trump's utter and dangerous moral and intellectual inability to grasp the scope, scale, meaning, and consequence of the Presidency and of the positions he gets to fill as President.
The above feels both trivially obvious and necessary to state.
Vice is the conservative moat because the conservative movement has spent decades making it so.
Evil done while doing pursing good is good, after all, as Conservative Catholic intellectuals made clear when defending the torture of our captive enemies, and as SCOTUS affirmed in Trump v. USA.
Once Pat Buchanan declared war on American culture, and Jonah Goldberg explained that all fascism was actually liberalism, the conservative license to embrace vice to defeat evil was absolute.
In this moral milieu, adultery is proof of virility and attractiveness. In this moral milieu wealth and alleged intelligence substitutes for virtue. In this moral milieu Biden's attending church every week is proof of his perfidy.
See how easy it is?
The Bulwark is one of a small handful of media outlets I consider to be worth a darn these days. Thanks for your consistently insightful writing, Jonathan Last.
I think Bill Clinton’s presidency was the first time I saw people on the other side who were truly enraged by him and his position. I remember anger towards Reagan, but nothing like what Clinton brought out in his opponents. They started investigating him & Hillary before he became president and they’re still investigating them today. A lot of government money has been spent with nothing to show for it.
I do not need a grand unifying theory for why bad people do bad things. Or why Trump/GOP supporters continue to back increasingly crappier Trump surrogates. I dont think rationalizing why someone does something stupid or even at cost to themselves is very useful since I believe each supporter has their own rationalizations, each as stupid and petty as the others. Hegseth is a twerp. A moron. And a monster. Wrapping himself in very public displays of "Christian" symbols and opening professing his commitment to Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior is very obviously performative. No one is fooled about his morals. If they support him, they just dont care. WHY they dont care, the subject of JVL's theory, just isnt interesting to me. I am justified in holding them to their decision because we in the electorate are all adults. We have agency. We can disagree with dear leader. Most of on the left, most Dems, disagree regularly, its what makes it hard to compete with the stifling, oppressive nature of the MAGA-fied GOP. I believe any of the GOP (electeds and voters) that toe-the-line on manifestly unworthy nominees do so by willingly surrendering to the whims of Trump, and in doing so, earn my scorn. We are all in this together, we are all Americans. And to see 1/3 of the adults willingly, if not eagerly, choke down Hegseth, Gabbard, RFK or that mook Patel, hardens my position, that they WANT my scorn. And that does make me feel bad, because my kids are 26,23 and 21 and we are leaving them such a utter f@cking mess.
"Too many of us know next to nothing about the systems that undergird our lives." And therein lies the problem. At least some of us have the humility to realize that.
This is a theory I have seen from some Trumpers. They like that he represents crime and ability to do things that are illegal because that is what is needed to shake up our society right now.
Or they just want to be the naughty boy who gets away with it and they can't, so they admire people who can.
Regarding JVL's theory of the Republican embrace of vice, I don't disagree that they like, even extol, vice and violence in their champions, but I think it's far simpler than believing that, because they are guilty of crimes, they will not hesitate to hurt their opponents. It's tribal dynamics, but not at some superficial level, it is about accessing the core of supporter's identity as an active, valued member of the tribe.
As frightening as it sounds, Republican's embrace of anti-qualified candidates can be explained through the pro wrestling practice of the new "kayfabe," a willing suspension of disbelief in which performers, promoters and (most important for this discussion) the audience all "keep kayfabe," i.e., they become participants in the performance. In original kayfabe, the fans were merely spectators and pro wrestlers were never out of character. The "Faces" (AKA Baby faces - good guys) are always good guys and the "Heels" are always bad guys, in and out of the ring and anywhere, anytime in public. This has not changed much with new kayfabe in that anyone aligned with your guy, Face or Heel, is automatically his ally and therefore you root for them, no matter what and you believe in their worth (if not virtue) because they are on your guy's team. Thus play actors such as Hegseth, Gabbard, Patel and RFK Jr. become heroes, merely because they are on your guy's side. Likewise, alliances in pro wrestling can switch at any time, thus John Kelly, Jim Mattis, Bill Barr, Mike Pence, etc. can go from being heroic allies to traitorous enemies in an instant without a second thought.
In new kayfabe, the audience is a part of the spectacle, they are active players in the performance. Another feature is the "smart fans" vs. the "marks," i.e., those who understand it is all a performance vs. those dupes who believe it is all real. Most fans think they are smart and it is the others who are the marks, allowing them to feel superior while still cheering on their hero. They see the tactics behind the performance but this invests them even further into the spectacle because they are now an insider with the knowledge that it's all part of a greater strategy (despite the obvious grift), but now they are on the team. Interestingly, in the realm of political kayfabe, pundits also play a crucial role. They focus not on the substance, practicality, costs and harms of positions taken by a candidate (e.g., mass deportation, tariffs, prosecuting political opponents, leaving NATO, invading Greenland), but on the strategic messaging they are sending, the "message within the message.". These messages become projective tests upon which disparate parts of the politician's base can find the message they want to find (saving American jobs for Americans, vs. support for White supremacy and xenophobia). Further, pundits don't ask how politicians will keep their promises (lowering prices, eliminating the debt while cutting taxes, cutting programs without any pain, deporting tens of millions of people, etc.), instead they try to expose the "true meaning" behind the (not serious) position. This framing certainly explains much about the failure of professional pundits to take Trump seriously, to the endless frustration of his opponents.
The "moat" certainly is a helpful metaphor for the safety shield around Trump's nominees, but it is a part of the larger fiction, the political kayfabe, of the era of Trump. Except that folding chair we're being hit with is real.
(1) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1478929920963827
My going theory is that the TrumpGOP effectively runs on how mad they can make the other side, the more anger a nominee illicit from their perceived enemy ' liberal tears effectively' the more power it has in the movement. So Hegseth has the advantage of enraging the left more and therefore the moat is a moat of vice but more because of the response it illicits. And when you think about it folks like Kavanaugh prove the rule, it was only after the contervsery built up that he became a hero of the right.
What we do with that is a really rough question, because when your oppisition effectively feeds off you standing up for what's right does that create a perverse incentive to be quiet? We should continue to stand up for what's right, but I do think it's correct that MAGA feeds off it, and therefore the bigger transgression the more heat from the left it draws and the more MAGA will support the most horrific things.
Late to comment but read and have been thinking about this piece. I've been considering this for a while too because it's disturbing to me. I'm not sure the exact reason for embracing vice as they have. I can see JVL's Conservative Inc response playing out "Liberal elites have cried wolf so many times over the years that Republican voters no longer believe any allegations of bad behavior." But I wonder if they are just trying to be the opposite of anything and everything traditional politics used to be - where good character was expected and if it fell short there were consequences. Who wouldn't want to live in a consequence-free world? Well me and people around me, because we still believe in right and wrong, decency, and no one being above the law, but MAGA is seeking to build a consequence-free world because their corrupt leader needs it and so far has attained it for himself. Maybe some Republicans were reluctant at first to embrace it but seeing how it has worked for Trump, have climbed on board. That, and wanting to be the opposite of traditional liberal values as a backlash to social progress I suppose. "Stick it to the Libs."
RE: Lt. Col. Hegseth - the Department of Defense is not too big to fail.
Your piece on vice is spot on. It makes want to cry. And I've been talking for several years about how we have several generations who have, for the most part, always had the infrastructure of our society in place and have no clue that we need to continue to pay taxes for upkeep. I've begun describing this as thinking you need to shower once, and then you're clean the rest of your life. That seems to be breaking through.
"After all: If a guy is willing to rape a woman, surely he can be counted on to visit destruction on Democrats, or woke generals, or whoever." I think you nailed it right here.
Growing up on a farm and raising and preparing all our food, and tending our animals, which we used for food, gave us a unique knowlegde of working for our meals and the literal price of eating meat (seeing the "harvesting" firsthand). It was a deliberate choice by our depression-era parents to teach us, but also because we had a large family and had to make do with what we had. Living in other countries and experiencing seasonal eating has reinforced that. Given the times we live in, with our abundance, I know we are blessed in having things anytime we want them, but then, are we really?
I’m late to this section but what it made me think about is something I have noticed quite a bit in my personal life as someone who is almost 40. By now you have seen people “fail” in life in some way, most often this means something like divorce. And the most common denominator between those who I have observed in my personal life who have experienced divorce is they are MAGA. I know it’s just an anecdote but without fail, of everyone I know who experiences divorce, one of the spouses (the man usually) is MAGA. What this means on a larger scale I don’t know but it’s something I’ve observed to be true.
OMG.... I can't rec this highly enough! I've been saying for days... maybe weeks, even... that the Dems are going after the wrong issues with Hegseth! Not only is he ludicrously unqualified for the job, he also wrote a book in which he states that 'leftists, progressives and Democrats' are internal enemies and suggested this needed to be addressed by the military!!