Already in his student days, Hegseth made his wingnut culture warrior credentials clear. As publisher of The Princeton Tory, Hegseth stated that he would “defend the pillars of Western civilization against the distractions of diversity” and claimed e.g. of The New York Times’ decision to print gay marriage announcements that it might just as well publish marriage announcements for incestuous, zoophilic, and pedophilic relationships (this is not merely ancient stuff: Hegseth has more recently also e.g. denounced TV shows portraying gay people as normal people as “evil,” “wicked,” “demonic,” and “a satanic Trojan Horse”). There is a decent resource on Hegseth’s background, including his work with Concerned Veterans for America, here.
During his stint at Fox and Friends, Hegseth had demonstrable influence on Trump 1. When Trump, in 2018, claimed that a migrant caravan traveling toward the US was infiltrated by “unknown Middle Easterners”, it was based on something Hegseth had made up; similarly, Trump repeated Hegseth’s attempt to correlate video games with mass shootings in 2019 based on nothing but a wish to draw attention away from the role of guns.
More importantly, Hegseth has served as secretary of defense since January 2025. Others have covered his tenure as secretary of defense comprehensively, including his attempts to get rid of critics (particularly notable are, perhaps, his frivolous legal campaigns against Mark Kelly and, not the least, this situation), to bring the military more effectively under the control of Trump’s whims, and to ban educational materials that don’t promote his own ideological stances; we’ll not go into detail on these issues here. His general level of competence – which was perhaps well illustrated by this situation early in his tenure, and remember that Hegseth was pretty vocal back in 2016 about Hilary Clinton’s “recklessness” with e-mails and recommended job firings and potential criminal charges) – and its significance is discussed e.g. here and here. At least his efforts to punish media over what he deems ‘unflattering’ photographs display petty snowflake dictator proclivities in full. His use of advice from and promotion of conspiracy theorists like pizzagate champion Jack Posobiec is worth a mention as well. And of course, he is arguably a murderer and warcriminal.
Fundie insanity
Hegseth is a religious fundamentalist and Christian nationalist with close ties to the Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, which is a congregation in the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC). Pilgrim Hill’s pastor Brooks Potteiger is Hegseth’s closest spiritual adviser, and Hegseth has a close relationship with Joshua Haymes, who runs the podcast the Reformation Red Pill podcast, which Hegseth has visited on numerous occasions. CREC, founded and led by Doug Wilson, promotes ‘sphere sovereignty’, that all aspects of human life, including the government, should be bound by biblical law as laid out in Old Testament precepts of ‘morality’ and punishment, as well as Postmillennialism, the view that Christians have a duty to ensure Christian domination of the world to facilitate the return of Christ. In particular, CREC promotes (e.g.) Christian nationalism, revoking women’s right to vote in the US, the idea that non-Christians and liberal Christians should not be allowed to hold public office in the US (or express their views in public), and capital punishment – potentially stoning – for adultery, abortion and homosexuality. Wilson and his followers understandably lauded Hegseth’s appointment as secretary of defense a major win for their ideology. At least one of Hegseth’s children is attending one of Doug Wilson’s ‘schools’.
Hegseth’s concern for how leftist ideology ruins kids goes behind educational concerns for his own offspring, of course. As a counterstrategy, Hegseth has suggested – e.g. at the CrossPolitic podcast hosted by Wilson-affiliates Toby Sumpter and Gabe Rench – creating a system of “classical Christian schools” himself to provide recruits for an underground army that will eventually launch an “educational insurgency” to take over the nation. Similar ideas were developed in his 2022 book Battle for the American Mind, which was coauthored with David Goodwin, president of Doug Wilson’s Association of Classical Christian Schools.
Indeed, Hegseth has himself explicitly endorsed the ideas of sphere sovereignty and promoted speeches by Doug Wilson e.g. arguing that women shouldn’t have the right to vote; people have also taken notice of his efforts to purge women from the military. Moreover, Hegseth has begun hosting monthly Christian prayer services during working hours at the Pentagon, using people like Potteiger and Wilson to lead them (from February 2026, they have also sent invitations to defense contractors, which have a particular motivation to participate and gain the advantage of face time with Pentagon officials that at least non-Christians and people with more integrity are barred from). The efforts have apparently had some effect: In the wake of the Iran attacks, military leaders told their service members that the war was “part of God’s divine plan”, that President Donald Trump was anointed by Jesus, and that the war would bring about the second coming of Jesus Christ. Those sentiments are certainly reflected by Hegseth himself, who has claimed that soldiers fight for the US because they believe in Jesus (and “the willingness to make sacrifices on behalf of one’s country is born in one thing: a deep and abiding belief in God’s love for us and his promise of eternal life”) and that they gain salvation for dying for a “Christian nation”.
And yes, Hegseth is, indeed, a Christian nationalist, as laid out e.g. in his 2020 book American Crusade (reviewed here). In the book, Hegseth defined “Americanism” as opposition to feminism, globalism, Marxism, and progressivism, called democracy a leftist (hence non-Americanist) demand, and described those with a different political bent than himself as enemies of freedom (however he defines “freedom”), the United States, and the Constitution, which he evidently has his own interpretation of. A victory for America, according to Hegseth, involves the end of globalism, socialism, secularism, environmentalism, Islamism (a central theme of the book central the destruction of Muslim holy sites in order to reclaim them for Christianity), “genderism”, and leftism. Note also that Hegseth has for a while (e.g. in his book The War on Warriors) complained against measures to prevent far-right militia members and white supremacists from gaining positions of power in the military; there is an ok essay on some of Hegseth’s ideas for the military here.
General wingnuttery and conspiracy theories
Hegseth was, of course, also a vigorous spreader of ridiculous 2020 election fraud conspiracy theories, and was a central promoter of the conspiracy theory that Antifa was involved in the January 2021 attack: he claimed to have seen evidence firsthand that Antifa members disguised themselves as Trump supporters, but when pressed, appeared to retreat to “reports” and ultimately that he didn’t need more evidence than his “common sense”.
Not the least, Hegseth has described climate change as nothing but an attempt at government control. In March 2025, he accordingly canceled climate change studies, decried climate change as “crap” on social media, and sought to eliminate climate planning from the Department of Defense – though he included an exception for extreme weather preparation, which would more than suggest that he was pretty aware that he was merely posturing for dimwitted fans was it not for the overwhelming evidence that he is a lunatic moron.
His general view of matters related to science and reality is well illustrated by the pride he takes in not having washed his hands in over ten years. Hegseth’s reason for not washing his hands is that Hegseth doesn’t believe that germs exist. If Hegseth cannot see them, he says, they are not real, unlike Antifa at Trump rallies or demons.
Diagnosis: One of the greatest and most immediate threats to human life, welfare or civilization the world has to offer at present, of course, and the kind of person no-one with a minimum of both wits and decency would let near any kind of situation where he could possibly exert any kind of power or influence over anything. We do not live in a world where wits or decency carry much weight, however.
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