- Reactions to the Hegseth and Trump speeches from Tom Nichols, David Ignatius, Paul Krugman, Heather Cox Richardson, and others;
- More examples of how the right, not the left, is promoting political violence;
- And Amanda Marcotte about how Christian music signals the limitations of Christian influence.
Again, not to dwell, but at least to note. These are comments, not summaries.
The Atlantic, Tom Nichols, 30 Sept 2025: The Commander in Chief Is Not Okay subtitled “Trump put on a disturbing show for America’s generals and admirals.”
This farrago of fantasy, menace, and autocratic peacocking is the kind of thing that the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan evocatively called “boob bait for the Bubbas” and that George Orwell might have called “prolefeed.” It’s one thing to serve it up to an adoring MAGA crowd: They know that most of it is nonsense and only some of it is real. They find it entertaining, and they can take or leave as much of Trump’s rhetorical junk-food buffet as they would like. It is another thing entirely to aim this kind of sludge at military officers, who are trained and acculturated to treat every word from the president with respect, and to regard his thoughts as policy.
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Washington Post, David Ignatius, 30 Sept 2025: Trump and Hegseth’s backward-facing message to the generals, subtitled “A preoccupation with ‘woke’ culture and “enemies” won’t prepare the military for the high-tech demands of 21st-century war.”
Here’s the scariest part about Tuesday’s military pep rally: President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — in their focus on grooming, fitness standards and “the enemy within” — seem oblivious to the reality that 21st-century combat will be dominated by drones and artificial intelligence, plus commanders who understand these high-tech weapons.
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Hegseth is so intent on creating a tough military that having a smart one appears secondary. He wants to restore the old-time, gung ho imagery. Basic training that’s “scary, tough and disciplined.” Drill sergeants who can “instill healthy fear” and “put their hands on recruits.” Hegseth seems convinced that how soldiers fight depends on how they look. “The era of unprofessional appearance is over,” he said. “No more beardos.” Maybe he doesn’t remember the unshaven “dogfaces” of Bill Mauldin’s cartoons during World War II.
Idealizing an obsolete past, as conservatives are wont to do.
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Similarly from Paul Krugman.
Paul Krugman, 1 Oct 2025: Bulging Biceps Don’t Win Modern Wars, subtitled “Hegseth’s speech was vile. It was also stupid.”
Why did Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary — he may call himself secretary of war, but Congress has not, in fact, voted to change his department’s name — summon 800 top generals and admirals to Washington? I admit that I feared the worst — that he would demand that they pledge personal fealty to Donald Trump. But no: They were summoned to listen to a speech about “lethality,” followed by a highly political speech by Trump himself.
How do you achieve lethality, according to Hegseth? By telling the military that it’s OK to engage in hazing, sexual abuse and bigotry — he didn’t say that explicitly, but that was his clear message. Also, war crimes are no big deal. And members of the military, including the top brass, must shave their beards, lose weight and do pullups.
Hegseth’s speech was morally vile. It was also, however, profoundly stupid. Hegseth seems to have gotten his ideas about what an effective military looks like by watching the movie 300.
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Others:
- Guardian: Veterans react to Hegseth’s ‘insulting’ address to generals and admirals, subtitled “Defense secretary’s speech touching on physical fitness and doctrine of lethality was seen as ‘egotistical’ and ‘dangerous’”
- New Republic, 2 Oct 2025: Here’s How Many Military Leaders Liked Trump and Hegseth’s Speeches, subtitled “Spoiler alert: zero”
- Heather Cox Richardson, September 30 2025. Long description of the two speeches. Including this passage from Trump, which I’ve seen quoted elsewhere…
“They looked at him falling downstairs every day. Every day, the guy [Biden] is falling downstairs. He said, It’s not our President. We can’t have it. I’m very careful. You know, when I walk downstairs for, like, a month, stairs, like these stairs, I’m very—I walk very slowly. Nobody has to set a record. Just try not to fall, because it doesn’t work out well. A few of our presidents have fallen and it became a part of their legacy. We don’t want that. You walk nice and easy. You’re not having—you don’t have to set any record. Be cool. Be cool when you walk down, but don’t—don’t pop down the stairs. So one thing with Obama, I had zero respect for him as a President, but he would bop down those stairs. I’ve never seen it. Da-da, da-da, da-da, bop, bop, bop. He’d go down the stairs. Wouldn’t hold on. I said, It’s great. I don’t want to do it. I guess I could do it. But eventually, bad things are going to happen, and it only takes once. But he did a lousy job as president. A year ago, we were a dead country. We were dead. This country was going to hell.”
You really admire this guy, Republicans?
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More about which ‘side’ is promoting political violence.
Salon, Sophia Tesfaye, 1 Oct 2025: Do Fox News hosts support political violence? Yes, no, sort of, subtitled “Jesse Watters’ comments about bombing the UN is just the latest example of a trend”
There is an apparent and dangerous double standard at Fox News, cable television’s most-watched network. Inflammatory rhetoric, and even the incitement and praise of violence, is simply laughed off under the auspices of humor and pushed aside by a brief or private apology.
“There is nothing funny or ironic in calling for the bombing, the gassing, the destruction of this building,” United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric explained to reporters after Fox News host Jesse Watters said the United Nations building in New York should be “bombed” or “gassed” after President Donald Trump experienced technical problems — a malfunctioning escalator and teleprompter that Watters called sabotage and an “insurrection” — during his General Assembly address last week.
“What we need to do is either leave the UN or we need to bomb it,” Watters stated on the Sept. 23 episode of “The Five.” He continued: “Maybe gas it?…We need to destroy it.”
Barely containing her laughter, co-host Dana Perino, a former White House spokesperson for former President George W. Bush, responded, “Let’s not do that.”
And oh, by the way, about that escalator, and teleprompter.
He blamed UN staffers for sabotaging Trump’s appearance and jeopardizing his safety, a sentiment echoed by the White House. “I hope they get to the bottom of it,” the Fox News host said. “And I hope they really injure, emotionally, the people that did it.”
But, as the UN made clear, the escalator suddenly stopped after a White House videographer accidentally triggered a safety mechanism. Regarding the teleprompter issues, UN officials stated that the White House was operating it.
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One more.
JMG, 1 Oct 2025: Voldemort To Troops In Memphis: “You Are Unleashed, It’s Over, They Have No Idea How Ruthless We Are”
“I see the guns and badges in this room. You are unleashed. Whatever you need to get done, we are gonna get it done. … The gangbangers that you deal with — they think they’re ruthless? They have no idea how ruthless we are. They think they’re tough? They have no idea how tough we are. They think they’re hardcore? We are so much more hardcore than they are. And we have the entire weight of the United States government behind us. When President Trump makes a decision, this team behind me executes.” – Stephen Miller, literally shouting today in Memphis with Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.
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And now for something completely different.
Salon, Amanda Marcotte, 1 Oct 2025: MAGA can’t expand its base — and Christian music tells us why, subtitled “The songs from Charlie Kirk’s memorial exposed a serious problem”
I’ve mentioned before how on drives down the I-5 from the Bay Area to LA (and back), the majority of radio stations (even on FM) are devoted to Christian music. You can tell within 5 or 10 seconds because the lyrics include “Jesus” or “God” or “blessings” in every other line. And the music itself is insufferably bland. Marcotte identifies the core reason.
Passing over some discussion of Trump’s unpopularity. Getting to the Charlie Kirk memorial.
The musicians who performed at Kirk’s memorial hailed exclusively from the niche worlds of contemporary Christian music (CCM) and worship music. CCM, while lucrative for musicians, is mostly the domain of artists who don’t have enough juice to cross over into the more desirable secular market. Traditionally, those artists who do manage to transition — think Creed or Evanescence — drop the “Christian” moniker and will even insist that they never intended to be categorized as such. Worship music, a genre that was popularized in the late 1990s and early 2000s by groups like Hillsong — a band affiliated with a controversial church in Sydney, Australia — and singer-songwriters like Chris Tomlin, who performed at the memorial, bills itself as producing modern hymns built around simple choruses.
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Look, we’re all very worried here about rising fascism. But it’s time to take a deep breath and remember this: If Christian music appealed to anyone outside the white evangelical world, we’d have seen evidence of it by now. CCM has been around for decades, and yet it remains what it always was — watered down versions of sounds that were popular on the radio years ago.
Exactly. You can’t listen to this music without being struck by how … simple-minded it is. Centuries ago, religion inspired great art and great music. In music, I would cite Bach offhand, and Bruckner. No doubt others. But this musical example, as much as any other, shows how the influence of religion has diminished in high culture, if not popular culture. Religion hasn’t inspired great art for centuries.
Popular music may not be satanic, but MAGA is right to see it as mostly liberal. That’s why they fear it. Far from avoiding transcendent artistic experiences, the left can lay claim to most of them. Most everything from Taylor Swift to the grittiest punk music is made by people on the left. That’s why evangelicals want their kids to avoid it. They rightly believe that it’s hard to go back to mediocrity after you’ve tasted excellence.
