Republican Senator Thom Tillis, former Senate Armed Services Committee member, has accused Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth of mismanaging the Pentagon, and is recommending Trump fire him. Tillis wrote on X that Hegseth is “intimidated by competence” and “retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force.”
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‘Ginning up culture wars’ to detract from malfeasance describes the entire Trump administration. It also captures how Fox News manipulates 38% of the country to vote against their own interests. Climate change? Corruption? Measles? These illegals are stealing from you.
After forcing credentialled journalists out of the Pentagon last year, Hegseth introduced a new right-wing press corps to replace them. He also started placing online influencers, aka political commentators, in civilian roles to keep his low IQ culture wars brewing. These influencers have been assigned as either “special government employees” or “highly qualified experts” who use social media to deflect from Hegseth’s mistakes, attack critics, and promote Hegseth’s favored viewpoints.
Using federal tax dollars for propaganda is illegal
Although the DOD has refused to answer questions about payment arrangements for Hegseth’s influencers, it is a logical inference that they are being paid with taxpayer funds. Republican Air Force veteran Adam Kinzinger noted as much, posting that it appears the Pentagon “is using your tax dollars to hire influencers on X to put out partisan talking points.”
Using federal tax dollars to pay for political commentary has long been illegal. Section 718 of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act explicitlyprohibits spending federally appropriated tax dollarson political propaganda: “No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used directly or indirectly, including by private contractor, for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by Congress.” This restriction blocks three separatecategories of impermissible communications, including those that “fail to clearly identify the federal agency as the source or sponsor of the content.” Hegseth’s propagandists did not reveal that they were working for the federal government; that took some sleuthing by journalists at the Washington Post and the Bulwark.
All government agencies are legally required to be transparent about the origin of their communications under FTC Disclosure Rules as well. Under federal law, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires social media influencers to clearly and conspicuously disclose any financial relationships or sponsorships they may have. Failing to disclose when social media content is paid for violates consumer protection laws and amounts to deception.
Although it sounds quaint by now to point out yet another way this administration is breaking federal law, paying influencers to disseminate false or skewed information is covert propaganda that assaults the principle of an informed electorate. It is also the hallmark of an autocratic regime.
The Nazi ideology of Hegseth’s troll
In his excellent Substack post, Surviving in a pit of vipers, Robert Tracinski notes that one of Hegseth’s main influencers, Kurt Schlichter, is “pretty much a straight-up fascist.” ‘Pretty much’ is Tracinski being cautious. Schlichter advocates online for using the law to “force Democrats into political submission” and to “imprison dissenters.” Schlichter calls blue state liberals “evangelical Marxists” whom “red state conservatives” must force “by any means necessary” to be “like us,” with “no quarter and no compromise.”
“No quarter,” coming from a retired Army colonel with 620,000 X followers literally means killing adversaries. In war, showing “no quarter” has been an international war crime since 1907. In peace, applying it to silence different political perspectives is blood-curdling.
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Schlichter also advocates penalizing “barren, non-familial lifestyles” and banning people in those lifestyles from political participation altogether. He also advocates “nationalizing big tech and academia” in order to “mandate conservatism as their operational ideology.” Schlichter wants to weaponize these institutions to enforce far-right political viewpoints nationwide. Between 1933 and 1945, Hitler similarly eliminated political opposition and forced the German population to align with Nazi ideology.
Hegseth’s reflexive lies put Americans in danger
The dangers of federal propaganda are obvious and the history is bleak, but Hitler didn’t invent state-forced ideology. The founders’ original goal behind the First Amendment was protecting Americans from forced ‘state’ ideology. They would flip in their graves to see this administration rule by propaganda, disseminated by right wing media, Hegseth’s trolls, and Trump and Elon Musk’s own for-profit social media platforms. It’s as if Trump 2.0 is a division of Fox News.
Governing by falsehoods is dangerous in any context, but lying about military operations puts American lives in danger. Hegseth’s lies downplaying Iranian attacks on U.S. assets in the Persian Gulf, for example, disrupted the distribution of food and supplies for the long-suffering troops on the USS Abraham Lincoln. Trump’s lies aren’t helping the war either. Last week he published an AI video falsely depicting the destruction of Iran’s strategic oil terminal, Kharg Island, signaling his cognitive impairment to Iran.
Hegseth seems to have transferred his Fox News propaganda manual to the Pentagon. In March, he called reports that Iran was disrupting oil shipments through the Straight of Hormuz “patently ridiculous” even as satellite imagery proved the reports. He deflected on evidence that the U.S. bombed a school and killed 175 children. He claims the U.S. “never targets civilians” after killing over 200 civilians on small boats in the Caribbean on mere suspicion that they were “narcoterrorists,” and after bombing an Iranian wedding hall with highly precise, guided munitions. And who can forget Hegseth’s early claim of complete and total “obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear capacity after last year’s bombing campaign?
He was lying then and he is lying now, and his culture war trolls are spreading his false propaganda.
Tillis, and a growing chorus Republican critics, are spot on. Hegseth is dangerous. According to Trump, he knows more about war than the generals do, why does he even need a Secretary of War?
Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.
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