The Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, having the destruction of his own military well in hand, has decided to spend some of his time with online bullying of Canadian youth. On his X account he posted a photo of a young female Canadian cadet receiving an award from her instructor, pasted in a Canadian flag, and added the text “(this is real).” You can see the post here (unless he takes it down, which he probably won’t because he is seems to be proud to be an adult man who picks on children).
I won’t speculate on what the Testosterone-Obsessed Hegseth was ridiculing in the photo. Whatever it was, there’s no doubt it was demeaning–though Hegseth doesn’t realize that he is the one who has been demeaned.
According to the BBC, Canadian officials and politicians have reacted strongly to Hegseth’s post. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that any trade talks between the US and Canada would resume only “when the Americans stop doing memes, stop throwing shade, stop trying to be tough and start being serious about having those discussions.” This is yet another brilliant response by Carney to Administration provocations. Carney understands both how to respond to bullies and how to rally his country against the American threat. But it also means that we can assume that trade discussions won’t be resuming anytime soon, because the Trump Administration can’t go five minutes without doing memes, throwing shade, trying to sound tough, and being doggedly, profoundly, pointedly, persistently, and incessantly unserious.
Hegseth’s Canadian counterpart, Canadian Defense Minister David McGuinty said on Tuesday that Hegseth’s post was “below the dignity of the office.” I’m not so sure about that. Apart from what the Administration’s renaming of Hegseth’s office as the “Secretary of War” did to the dignity of the office, I think that the incumbent actually determines the “dignity of the office.” When Trump nominated, and the Senate narrowly confirmed, Hegseth–a Fox “News” host, a mid-grade National Guard officer, and an alleged drunk–the “dignity” of the office was severely diminished, hopefully not irreparably, but at least until Hegseth takes up whatever right-wing media job he gets after his term in office.
Hegseth is symptomatic of the Trump Administration: extravagantly incompetent, laughably unqualified, and utterly lacking in intelligence or the ability to learn. Hegseth’s emotional and intellectual maturity seem to have frozen at the third-grade level, and so he has resorted to bullying, racism, and sexism to cope with his inadequacy and his dim awareness that he (and his friends) could not compete on a truly even playing field. Thus, Hegseth has realized (if only unconsciously) that the only way to protect his white male privilege is to subvert the opportunities that would be afforded to others under a fair system of competition; to deprive those others of chances to compete, work, and thrive; and to attempt to destroy the self-esteem and progress of anyone who doesn’t share his whiteness, maleness, privilege, and/or stupidity.
Whether it’s depriving women and minorities of opportunities to advance in the military, or making fun of Canadian children, everything that Hegseth does and says demonstrates that he is a loser–a pathetic boy in a man’s body, trying his hardest to project strength and competence, and in so doing, projecting nothing but weakness, stupidity, amateurishness, and inadequacy. A man who bullies children. A boy pretending to be a man.