(AP Picture/Alex Brandon)

Pete Hegseth’s confirmation listening to on Tuesday served as a reminder of sheer amount of baggage imperiling his nomination to run the Department of Defense.

There are a slew of allegations against him suggestive of persona issues, ranging from the salacious (marital infidelities), to the sloppy (alcohol abuse), to the vast (sexual assault). On Tuesday, Democrats made positive that each a kind of allegations had their moment in the sun.

Yet Hegseth is more doubtless than ever to take cost of the Pentagon. Rapidly after he concluded his time in front of the Senate Armed Products and Services Committee, Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) — the bellwether voter on his nomination — reiterated that she was supporting him.

It’s tempting to chalk Republicans’ determination to coalesce around Hegseth to a few toxic combination of cowardice and obeisance. Democrats and their allies within the Fourth Property would love nothing greater than to make use of his affirmation for example of conservatives’ unconditional surrender to President-pick Donald Trump. And while there may be at least some actuality there — seem to be no additional than the pressure campaign Trump world subjected Ernst to — there are many different variables working within the nominee’s want.

For one factor, his message about refocusing the Division of Safety on its said function appeals to conservatives.

Hegseth has lambasted Pentagon management for spending time, power, and cash on promoting pet initiatives — together with Diversity, Fairness, and Inclusion initiatives — as an alternative of a “warrior ethos” and bettering the lethality of the U.S. military.

The former Fox News host normally programs this critique in a shock-jocky supply that preaches to the choir, however doesn’t win any converts. That doesn’t imply it’s with out benefit, though; the militia has lowered requirements in an effort to fulfill variety objectives.

This pattern of subordinating advantage to revolutionary dogma is simply as discernable in other spheres, equivalent to academia, journalism, and even comedy.

So when Hegseth warns about such systematic issues infecting an institution as vital to American nationwide safety, to not point out world order, as the U.S. militia, that endears him to conservatives and will have to be a mark in his choose for all with the fitting priorities.

Furthermore, while the laundry listing of allegations towards Hegseth may well be enough to make it baffling to dependable Democratic voters that senators would however line up in the back of him, it makes moderately a bit of extra feel when you view them via a Republican’s lens.

After all, Democrats have lengthy performed soiled right through nomination fights.

They made Robert Bork, probably the most preeminent legal minds of the last century, out to be a sexist, racist, neanderthal. They amplified flimsy sexual misconduct allegations towards Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas. For explicitly political reasons — they feared that a conservative Latino on the Supreme Court would make it harder to forged the GOP as unrepentantly bigoted — they put Miguel Estrada thru a ruthless course of during which his wife miscarried and after which she dedicated suicide. Most effective three Democrats voted to substantiate Neil Gorsuch. None voted for Amy Coney Barrett, whose Catholic faith was held towards her.

So while Hegseth has lived, at best possible, a life filled with errors, conservatives usually are not especially inclined to provide in to the calls for of Tim Kaine, who upbraided Hegseth for his infidelities however ran on a ticket with Hillary Clinton and lovingly recalled being interrogated “like a potential son-in-regulation” by means of Bill Clinton. Or to those of Elizabeth Warren, who puzzled Hegseth’s honesty however who used a fabrication about her Native American historical past to climb the ladder. Or to these of The New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer, who participated in the smearing of Kavanaugh and erroneously stated that Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) had refused to meet with Hegseth’s accuser.

It’s indisputable that Republicans have diminished their standards for their own in the Trump generation. But within the context of progressives’ disasters — as well as their validated willingness to bite, kick, scratch, and wreck lives within the pursuit of political energy — that should hardly come as a surprise.

The submit Why Conservatives Beef up Pete Hegseth first appeared on Mediaite.