Early yesterday morning, the United States Secretary of “War,” Pete Hegseth, stepped up to the podium at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and stood directly under a desecrated version of the Department of Defense seal. What was once a gold eagle carrying a shield of red, white, and blue is now a cold, white eagle with its rigid wings spread inside a stark blue circle. It no longer represented American freedom and power. Instead, it looked like a symbol of Nazi propaganda pulled straight from 1930s Germany, bearing an unmistakable resemblance to the Reichsadler, the imperial eagle that served as the official symbol of the Third Reich.
This was the second stop on his “Send Me” tour, a campaign to radicalize the military and to signal to the American people and the rest of the world that the United States Armed Forces now belong to him and the Trump Regime. During this short 21-minute address to cadets, he harnessed all of his performance skills to project strength and power. Yet his words still gave him away. He invoked God, told a strange story about “young Americans” singling him out and telling him they are desperate for him to “send me to fight the Redcoats,” “send me to fight the Communists,” “send me to fight the Nazis,” “send me to fight the Islamists.”
But even with all these theatrics to project a military that is flourishing with no morale issues, he also said this: “I’ve always been a big believer in civic ritual in parades, and the flyovers will continue until morale improves. That’s why I believe in flyovers.”
This, much like Pete Hegseth’s other events this week, and everything he said, was about building a false narrative ahead of the midterms. Especially what he said about morale. He knows morale isn’t improving, and the troops know it, too. His department was already forced to admit that eight sailors attached to the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group attempted suicide during its record-setting deployment during Donald Trump’s forever war in Iran. Their deployment went more than 260 days without making a port call. There were supply and hygiene product shortages. They even ran low on food. When the Navy’s acting secretary confirmed the suicide attempts in a letter to Congress, Hegseth responded by saying the conditions were “completely misrepresented.”
Donald Trump also weighed in, saying he thought the deployment was “not nearly long enough.” Both have dismissed media reports about conditions aboard the Lincoln as untrue because they came from the “fake news.” Yet Hegseth still felt the need to offer a solution to this supposedly nonexistent morale problem by suggesting more flyovers. He says he cares about our troops, but his actions, and lack of action when our troops actually need him, tell us something completely different.
This speech wasn’t really about our troops; it was part of a much larger, and deliberate effort to concentrate power and strip the military of experienced, ethical, and constitutionally grounded leadership. They want to rebuild it as a personal instrument and extension of the Trump Regime. His remarks in Colorado Springs were just a small part of their efforts to accomplish this.
Last Wednesday, just two days before he was in Colorado Springs, Pete Hegseth delivered what he called the “State of the Force” address in Virginia at Marine Corps Base Quantico. Before the speech even started, he made sure to be seen running laps and doing PT with military personnel in matching T-shirts that said “THIS IS WAR.” It was an odd shirt choice for the man tasked with keeping our military out of war, but it was downright bizarre when we consider that Hegseth’s boss, Donald Trump, has spent months insisting that the “military action” in Iran is not, in fact, a war. After he made sure there were enough videos and photographs of this workout spectacle, he took a helicopter the 33 miles to Quantico, where he walked back and forth on a stage in front of a massive American flag for 52 minutes and delivered what he wanted us to believe was just a normal address to the military, but what was really a staged political rally.
What is becoming more obvious at every recent event is the visual language they are using to get us to think and feel something. We don’t even have to look that closely to see the symbols they plaster across the stages and entire rooms at not just Pete Hegseth’s events, but also JD Vance’s and Donald Trump’s. They are going all in with the heavy Americana glorification. There are American flags, red, white, and blue imagery everywhere, with thick blue backdrops, and stars and stripes strategically placed so that every frame of the camera catches them and fills the space around whoever is speaking. It is coordinated and deliberate visual conditioning for us to see nationalism as patriotism, and it mirrors so much of what authoritarian regimes have always done when they need their symbols to do just as much work, if not more, than the words that they say. The Nazis are one of the easiest regimes to compare this to because they understood the power of visual identity better than almost any political movement in history. They designed their banners, logos, and even their uniforms to project a single message of uniformity and as a reminder that they were the ultimate power. There was no room for anything or anyone else.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the approximately 600 people in that Quantico room were handpicked to meet a very specific look. They had to meet physical requirements, including body fat standards, and were required to have “impeccable grooming and uniform.” As Pete Hegseth has said about Donald Trump and how he wants our military to be presented, “I want central casting.” It seems Hegseth took that to heart when deciding who would sit in that audience. And it goes so much deeper and darker than surface-level looks. They are building a brand, not building an army.
History has shown us where this kind of thinking can lead. When we were in Berlin, we purposely spent time with our children in museums learning about the image the Nazis created of what the ideal German was supposed to look like. The blond hair and blue eyes. The athletic, muscular builds. The emphasis on physical strength and uniformity. None of that was accidental. It was part of showing Germans what they were supposed to look like and who they were supposed to be. I took a photograph inside Berlin’s Olympic complex of a massive mural from that era that I have included below. When we look at the people in it, we see vibrant and young, seemingly healthy, physically fit, orderly, and cheerful Germans. This was the image the Nazis wanted people to emulate. It showed them what their country was supposed to look like, while also defining who belonged and who did not. We tend to think of Nazi propaganda as primarily swastikas, banners, and speeches, but it was so much more than that.
That is what makes handpicking an audience based on their looks so dangerous. We know what comes next if it is not stopped.
Pete Hegseth also included the press, much like Trump has been doing, in his disgusting rhetoric. “It’s worth saying again so the fake news understands it,” Hegseth declared. “We are no longer the woke department or the weak department. Simple translation of that: no fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors.”
I would normally never repeat such vulgar language, but in this moment it has to be pointed out. He chose to use that slur on purpose and as a signal to others. It told every person in that room and every person watching that this military is no longer being governed by decency, dignity, or respect for the people who serve in it. It is being reshaped around the ideology of those pulling the strings behind Donald Trump. This regime has now decided what an American soldier should look like, how they should talk, and even who they should pray to.
He went on with his cringeworthy performance, saying that “The ideological clowns are out. The patriotic cowboys are in, with testosterone testing on top.” He bragged about firing 10% of the military’s generals and admirals, and then announced he was cutting even more, explaining it like he was simply decluttering and getting rid of people who “clung to the woke department.” But that is not what this is. He didn’t get rid of 10% of the military’s senior leadership just to clear out people who disagreed with his personal brand. He got rid of the ones who would resist and who would push back. The people who were most likely to actually stick by their oath to the Constitution instead of pledging loyalty to Pete Hegseth or Donald Trump.
With this second wave of cuts, he is going after the middle layer of military leadership, so that there are fewer and fewer people between the person giving an order and the person expected to carry it out. There will be fewer people in the room willing to push back and say, “No. That order is unlawful.” That is the point. They don’t want people in the way. They don’t want resistance inside the chain of command. They just want orders coming from the top and being carried out from below.
He told the room that “each service will ensure that every requirement for every combat military occupational specialty, for every designated combat arms position, returns to the highest male standard only.” He said multiple times that our military is gender-neutral and then turned around and said that. It is a direct effort to push women out of combat roles and to continue banning transgender service members, while pretending all decisions are based on his definition of merit. Women, LGBTQIA+ and transgender people have all volunteered to defend this country, and they have brought skills and perspectives that have made our military stronger. Now he is pushing people out and making the world more dangerous for them, because of who they are, not because of how they perform. In doing so, he risks losing some of the talented, out-of-the-box thinkers our military needs.
He brought up his obsession with men’s bodies and their testosterone levels multiple times as well. Doctors are sounding alarms over his decision to widely screen men for testosterone deficiency even when they have no symptoms, something that goes against the recommendations of major medical organizations. Those who are diagnosed with low testosterone will then have the option of testosterone replacement therapy. Hegseth insists this isn’t about artificially enhancing troops, but then he talks about testosterone as part of building what he calls the “High-T Department of War” and keeping our troops on the “leading edge of lethality.” So which is it? Is this about treating a medical condition, or is it about his belief that more testosterone somehow makes a better warrior? And why is the Department of War dedicating its time and resources to widespread testosterone testing when members of the VA who desperately need medical care are still waiting?
He also announced “Project Meridian,” which he called “an effort led by America’s best minds to study the future of warfare.” Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich are those “best minds”. Elon Musk, whose SpaceX already has billions of dollars in government and military contracts. Palmer Luckey, a 34-year-old defense tech billionaire whose company, Anduril, also does enormous amounts of business with the Pentagon. And Newt Gingrich, the 83-year-old former speaker of the House who never served in the military but has spent decades weighing in on when and where America should use military force. These are the people Hegseth has chosen to help decide what the future of American warfare should look like. Two of them own companies that stand to make money from the very technologies the Pentagon will need to build that future.
He couldn’t possibly end his speech without some sort of Christian Nationalist sermon, and this one was no different. He announced, “Today, at my direction, I’m establishing the Office of Religious Affairs… It will report straight to the top, a direct line to the secretary...as Psalm 33:12 extolls us, blessed is the nation in which God is the Lord.”
He announced new partnerships with Liberty University, Hillsdale College, Tuskegee University, LSU, and Mississippi State to create a “new core of cadets.” Liberty University is not just a school. It is one of the primary breeding grounds for far-right Christian nationalism in this country, a place that has produced exactly the kind of ideological soldiers Hegseth wants filling the ranks. And placing it at the center of military recruitment tells us everything about what kind of force he is building.
Nearly every war in human history has been fought in the name of God, and God is always conveniently on the side of whoever is doing the killing. This is one of the oldest tools in the authoritarian playbook. You tell soldiers that the fight is divine, that their sacrifice is holy, and that their enemies are not just opponents but enemies of God himself. Putin used this same playbook when he invaded Ukraine, telling Russian soldiers they were protecting and liberating Ukrainians from Nazis, while he and the Russian Orthodox Church increasingly framed the war as a spiritual fight for Russia itself. Hegseth is doing the same thing. He is building a military that isn’t fighting for the American people, but for a version of God that only he and his allies get to define.
He also said that “A free press is of course important… but partisan activism that intentionally smears the troops and the historic mission that they are undertaking is fundamentally anti-American. It’s sick. It’s a national betrayal. It’s treason. I hate to have to say it, but it has to be said.”
The Secretary of Defense, or War, as he prefers, stood in front of the military and called journalism treason, one of the most serious crimes in American law. It can carry the death penalty. This is just another piece of a coordinated effort across Trump’s government to call anyone who reports what they don’t want us to know, hear, or see a traitor. What Hegseth is trying to do is help create fear around speaking the truth that we stop and ask whether it’s worth the risk even though we know he is perverting free speech into being seen as treason.
We did not see any actual leadership from Pete Hegseth at any of these events because he does not know how to lead. His experience came from being a Fox News personality who, while still serving in the National Guard himself, was removed from providing security for Biden’s inauguration after another Guard member flagged him as a possible “insider threat.” His own mother wrote him a letter saying she was embarrassed and disappointed in him over his treatment of women. Multiple former colleagues have also accused him of excessive drinking, something he has denied. He is a performer, and that is exactly what we saw this week.
By acknowledging what he is doing and not pretending it is anything but propaganda, we strip it of the power he thinks it holds. We know the truth about what he is doing to our military and our country. The most immediate remedy we have is to have him impeached. The House of Representatives was very close to doing so just weeks ago before Speaker Johnson urgently sent everyone home to avoid a vote. That all changes if we have a Democratic Congress, and we will have the chance to make that happen in less than a month. So take a moment and make sure you are still registered to vote. Most Secretaries of State, if not all, have links where you can check on their official websites. Take some time to do that, and also keep your eyes open for opportunities to ask friends and family to check theirs too.
When I watched Pete Hegseth in Colorado Springs, I saw beyond the fear he was spreading and back to some very special times my own family spent there when I was writing a travel story years ago. While we were there, I spoke to so many people who shared the struggles the area faced, but also why they loved it. The beauty that surrounded them. The sense of community and the care for the military service members who lived there. The pride they felt in the Olympic Training Center and Pikes Peak. I remember standing at the top of Pikes Peak, feeling weak from the altitude, needing to be cleared by EMS, and still going to the edge anyway because the view was too extraordinary to miss.
That America still exists and always will, no matter how hard Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump try to steal it from us. Pete Hegseth can stand under whatever seal he wants. He can rename the department, redesign the eagle, order every soldier to watch his speeches, and hand out his personal manifesto like it’s scripture. He can demand that our military follow his maximum lethality “warrior ethos” and look like whatever they think they should look like. But nobody, not even a corrupt regime controlling our government, can take away what this country means to us or stop us from fighting to keep building a country that is worth fighting for. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.