MAGA Demands Its Safe Space

What a bunch of snowflakes

I was on NBC the night of Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, when a former Republican congressman admonished Democrats for going after Hegseth too personally. In his telling, Democrats are turning people off by reminding them of Hegseth’s — checks notes — alleged propensity to rape women, show up to work drunk, mismanagement of two veterans organizations and other inappropriate personal behavior.

Hegseth leaned into the victimhood role himself, telling the committee that the people who accused him of toxic behavior were smearing him for no good reason. "All they were out to do was destroy me," he said at his hearing. (He never clarified why these people, most of them Republicans and one of whom is his own mother, would want to destroy him.)

Let me get this straight: MAGA is offended that Democrats are asking Hegseth, who is set to lead the largest employer in the nation, whether his personal behavior and checkered managerial experience should disqualify him from running the Department of Defense.

The same MAGA crew that traffics in disinformation, that says “Joe Biden sides with Satan,” and that Kamala Harris was involved in Pizzagate. The same crew that was offended and horrified when Hillary Clinton called them a “basket of deplorables.” That crew thinks anyone complaining about Pete Hegseth’s background will turn people off.

These people are so sensitive to anyone raising facts and to pushback that they censor contrary opinion on social media, threaten to sue newspapers that print unflattering factual content and promise to punish outlets that don’t sing from their choir book.

Have you ever seen a bigger bunch of whiny children? Actually, no — that’s unfair to children. Because according to the rules of the sandbox, if someone throws sand at you, you throw it back. Here, if you repeatedly throw sand at someone and someone calmly and rationally brings up that you have a sand-throwing problem, you hurl yourself on the ground and start pounding your fists that you are being mistreated. You’re a “nasty woman,” like Michelle Obama apparently was when she raised Trump’s well-documented history of racism against her own family. Trump can lie about her husband with impunity but when she calls him out on it — well, that’s not fair. Waaaaahhh!

And God forbid you elevate someone to any position who is not a white man. Oh, the DEI! Every single Black or female member of the military in any position of authority got there because of race or gender. Every single White guy is there because he deserves to be there. That’s why Hegseth gets to lead the Pentagon despite having all this baggage. He deserves it because, as a MAGA guest told me on Piers Morgan’s show yesterday, he spent over a decade at Fox News, so he “knows how to communicate.” Also, he is a Christian who believes that white Crusaders were right to “liberate” the Holy Land nearly a thousand years ago from Muslims and Jews. (This really happened.) A woman or a person of color with decades of relevant experience, on the other hand, would have only been nominated as Secretary of Defense because of DEI.

Here is what the Age of Trump has wrought. Wall Street, no one’s idea of a DEI haven, is rejoicing at MAGA’s ascension and not just because the casino is back open. “I feel liberated,” a senior banker told the Financial Times. “We can say ‘retard’ and ‘pussy’ without the fear of getting cancelled . . . it’s a new dawn.”

Right. It’s a new dawn when you are liberated to insult women and people with developmental disabilities. What’s next? Using the “N” word to address your Black colleagues on the trading desk? What a wonderful world MAGA has ushered in for us.

The reality is that those of us who refrain from this kind of rhetoric are not “woke.” We just aren’t complete and utter assholes. But decency has never been a MAGA hallmark, until accountability comes for them. Then they start acting like the language police.

Look, the norms are out the window. We don’t need to invent conspiracy theories the way MAGA does because the truth of what they do is horrific enough on its own. We don’t need to stoop to their name-calling or their disparaging monickers, because the truth of what they say is horrific enough on its own.

Just call them out. And when they try to fight back by saying that the call-outs are turning people off, laugh at them. What little snowflakes they are, melting at the first sign of heat. Look at them demanding their safe spaces, where their atrocious behavior is celebrated. Look at them canceling anyone who isn’t bending the knee to Trump. Look at them crying at the first sign of pushback. If it weren’t such an insult, I would almost call them woke.