Pete Hegseth was confirmed last night. The television news personality will become the next US secretary of defense. Hegseth will oversee the biggest bureaucracy in the world, with millions of people and a budget of nearly a trillion dollars. He will do all this while being the unworthiest man for the job. 

How unworthy? It’s hard to express in words. Perhaps the best way is merely stating that he’s so unqualified that even Mitch McConnell voted against him (along with all the Democrats and two Republicans, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins). Indeed, the former Senate majority leader who broke every norm you can think of, who is perhaps most responsible for Donald Trump’s second coming, and who was once described as “the gravedigger of American democracy,” said no dice.

Unqualified, but also degenerate. Other than his serious problems with alcohol, there’s the fact that Hegseth paid a woman to keep quiet after she accused him of rape in 2017. That’s in addition to his reprehensible behavior toward women generally. As Lindsay Beyerstein wrote:

Hegseth’s former sister-in-law, Danielle Hegseth, has since sworn out an affidavit stating that Hegseth was an abusive drunk whose wife cowered in the closet during his rages and had a safe word to text to family if she needed help. NBC News confirmed that others knew about the safe word. Ms. Hegseth also alleges that Pete grabbed his wife by the pussy, so to speak. Hegseth’s lawyer denies the physical abuse but sidesteps her reports of drunken rage, physical intimidation and her allegation that Hegseth got a lap dance in uniform and had to be carried from a strip club. Luckily for Hegseth, Trump loves alleged abusers more than he hates drunks.

Judd Legum, Rebecca Crosby and Noel Sims, over at Popular Information, compiled a list of reasons why anyone who is not Trump’s toady would have been dismissed out of hand. Hegseth, they wrote:

• “says women should not be in combat roles”
• “paid a woman who accused him of rape to sign an NDA”
• “published a column in college that claimed having sex with an unconscious woman is not rape”
• “is a serial philanderer, making him a target for blackmail”
• “criticized injured veterans who receive government assistance”
• “praised ‘waterboarding,’ blasted the Geneva Conventions
• “dismissed moral concerns about the use of nuclear weapons”
• “pushed to pardon service members convicted of war crimes”
• “said the United Nations should be shut down”
• “has a tattoo associated with white nationalists”
• “is a member of a Christian supremacist church”
• “said rising Muslim birth rates were causing ‘a slow motion 9/11’”
• “promoted editorial comparing same-sex marriage to bestiality”

All of which raises the question of merit – or rather, the question of why merit didn’t seem to matter when it came time for the Republicans in the US Senate to consider a nominee who isn’t just mediocre in every way except his ego and rate of failure, who isn’t just a moral reprobate, but who also doesn’t even know the basics of the job he applied for.

Merit is important to bear in mind, as the Trump administration is in the process of getting rid of anyone in the federal government who is associated with programs for diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI. 

The rationale for the purge is simple: “DEI hires” did not earn their positions, their status, their reputations and their achievements. No, they were given those things despite being unworthy of them. The only fair thing to do is purge them, making room for those with merit.

But as it’s used here, “merit” isn’t the merit that the rest of us understand. The term does not mean what you know, what you can do, or the future application of your skills, wisdom and knowledge. It’s not even about your character or personality. It’s about your identity.

In Hegseth’s case, it’s about being a privileged white man (who knows that allegations of rape, and a documented history of violence against women, will never be a liability with a president who has been accused of rape, sexual assault or sexual harassment by at least 26 women). 

In the case of “DEI hires,” it’s about not being a privileged white man.

Especially being Black.

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I think our future depends on understanding clearly the difference between merit and “merit.” Merit applies to everyone, such that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can achieve the American dream. 

“Merit” does not apply to everyone, only to some, primarily those who do not want to compete for things that they believe are rightfully theirs. Indeed, having to compete is an injustice, a wrong that must be righted, for instance, by purging the government of “DEI hires.” 

Merit has the promise of a government of the best and brightest. 

“Merit,” however, is corruption dressed up as something noble, and with it, there’s the promise of a government of the worst and least.

This isn’t an abstract argument. 

In Bob Woodward’s latest book, about the war in Ukraine, he recounts the moment when Vladimir Putin was prepared to use nukes. Joe Biden confronted him twice, warning him of the price to be paid. Then Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who is Black, called his counterpart to explain that “all the restraints that we have been operating under in Ukraine would be reconsidered.” Two days later, the Kremlin called back to say that the Ukrainians were planning to use a “dirty bomb.” 

“We don’t believe you,” Austin said. “Don’t do it.” 

And they didn’t.

I don’t know about you, but from where I’m standing, that takes balls of granite. It’s the kind of strength and courage that you’d expect from a man who worked hard to rise up the ranks to eventually be in charge of the military. It’s what you expect from a man who earned his place. 

Hegseth was given his. 

What can we expect from him?