"Hegseth’s tattoos, political views and religious affiliation and background are consistent with an extreme strain of Christian nationalism, according to Matthew Taylor, a scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, & Jewish Studies. Specifically, he appears to be belong to a fringe denomination known as Reformed Reconstructionism, which believes in applying biblical Christian law to society, exclusively male leadership, and actively preparing the world for the prophesied return of Jesus."

https://forward.com/fast-forward/675325/pete-hegseth-tattoos-christian-crusades-trump/

#Hegseth #PeteHegseth #ChristianNationalism #USPOL #Trump

2/6

"Last year, the magazine Nashville Christian Family ran a profile of Hegseth, in which he mentioned being a member of a 'Bible and book study' that focused on the book My Life for Yours by Doug Wilson, the 71-year-old unofficial patriarch of the TheoBros. Patriarch is the right word: When I interviewed Wilson a few months ago, he said that he, like many other TheoBros, believes women never should have been given the right to vote."

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/11/trump-peter-hegseth-defense-secretary-pick-theobros-hopes-for-a-christian-crusade/

#Hegseth #PeteHegseth #ChristianNationalism #USPOL #Trump

3/6

"In 2018, Hegseth’s remarks during a speech in Israel included references to a 'miracle' that would allow for the re-establishment of the Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount—a sacred site for both Muslims and Jews. This sentiment aligns with a faction of Christian Zionist thought that envisions the fulfilment of Biblical prophecy through the destruction of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem to make way for a third Jewish Temple. The ideology has been criticised as an extreme apocalyptic fantasy that endangers the fragile religious dynamics in the region and underpins an acceptance of reported Israeli human rights violations."

https://aoav.org.uk/2024/trumps-nomination-of-pete-hegseth-for-secretary-of-defense-fuels-concerns-following-ties-to-christian-nationalist-extremism/

#Hegseth #PeteHegseth #ChristianNationalism #USPOL #Trump

4/6

Jeff Sharlet on mainstream media's negligence in covering Hegseth's nomination:

"I began my journalism career covering courts-martial in San Diego, and I’ve reported on Christian nationalism within the armed forces. But I’m not a military reporter. This isn’t my beat. This isn’t my story. But I can read. And that’s where I start, when I want to understand the thinking of someone who’s written—or, who knows, put their name on the cover of—a book. [The book referred to here is The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free] The Times quotes one of the book’s first pages, too, and then none of the jaw-dropping, civil war fantasy rhetoric that fills what follows. The Washington Post quotes nothing. CNN wonders whether he has sufficient administrative experience. (Is 'none' sufficient?) Politico worries what the lobbyists will think."

https://religiondispatches.org/meet-pete-hegseth-the-man-who-will-lead-the-entire-us-military-a-man-deemed-an-extremist-by-the-us-military/

#Hegseth #PeteHegseth #ChristianNationalism #USPOL #Trump

5/6

The Guardian doing a pretty good job here:

“Democracy, it’s everywhere, right?” said Hegseth in a May 2024 interview, railing against secular public education and teachers’ apparent obsession with the idea of democracy. “Democracy, democracy, defend the democracy. Do you know what our founders did not want us to be? A democracy.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/15/trump-cabinet-pete-hegseth-defense

#Hegseth #PeteHegseth #USPOL #democracy #Trump

6/6

Dude can't wrap his head around a representative democracy still being a democracy. It's a democracy that actually scales to millions of people.

Oh no, they really mean that they’re against democracy, in literal terms. This has been an important theme of Republican politics since the 1990s

They want to restore the original consensus of the US Founfing Fathers – the nation is safest with power dispersed to powerful male landowners across the nation. Universal franchise was in their view, a huge mistake