By Sara Gabler
This article was originally published by Truthout
As calls for his impeachment mount, Hegseth is further entrenching his violent legacy of Christian supremacy and sexism.
Stunning Republican losses in the midterms could spell the end of Pete Hegseth’s tenure as the secretary of defense. From Vice President JD Vance to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), Hegseth’s own party is setting him up to take the fall for election losses blamed on the U.S. war with Iran.
In a rambling post on X on November 4, Vance said the reason the GOP lost was “obvious to almost everyone.” Though he never named Iran or Hegseth, he conceded that Republicans didn’t listen to voters’ demands to “end the war.”
Massie has gone even further. On November 9, he reintroduced articles of impeachment against Hegseth — articles he had already filed this September — citing Hegseth’s violations of the War Powers Resolution, among other charges.
“We’re not indicting him for being bad at his job,” Massie said at a press conference about the impeachment. “In fact, he was very effective at killing schoolchildren in Iran. He was very effective at extrajudicial killings.”
On November 8, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) announced his support of Massie’s proposed resolution, saying “Pete Hegseth has got to go.”
Hegseth is standing his ground. At a press conference this morning, Hegseth lashed out at Massie, calling him “a single rogue legislator loaded with personal animus for the president.“ Hegseth referred to his own track record as “lawful” and “successful.”
And in his video post on November 5, Hegseth had asserted that the war with Iran “is a courageous and historic effort,” adding, “We don’t back down, and that especially applies now.” Amid sycophantic statements about Donald Trump’s leadership, Hegseth also appealed to Congress to continue funding the so-called Department of War and to dismiss people like Massie, whom Hegseth called “obsessed” with him.
The Damage Has Been Done
Whether or not Hegseth takes the fall for Trump’s new forever war with Iran, the damage has already been done, including the thousands of civilian casualties and the wide-reaching cost of living crisis it exacerbated.
Andrew Whitehead, a sociologist, scholar of religion, and author of the 2024 book, American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church, told Truthout that “the repercussions of declaring this war will still be felt even if it ends tomorrow.”
On February 28, 2026, a U.S. attack on a girls school in Minab, Iran, killed more than 150 civilians, most of them children. That attack wasn’t an anomaly. According to the National Iranian American Council, the U.S. has targeted civilian infrastructure including dozens of airports, hundreds of health centers, and over 1,300 schools.
In addition to overseeing “Operation Epic Fury,” Hegseth was responsible for slashing the Pentagon’s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, which would have investigated the attacks, by 90 percent.
The war with Iran has also deepened the U.S. energy crisis, and as the winter approaches, the National Energy Assistance Directors Association predicts that utility costs will skyrocket as much as 50 percent. The group’s executive director, Mark Wolfe, writes, “At some point the war in Iran will end, but the affordability crisis will not end with it.”
With or without Hegseth, Trump’s decision to go to war also further diminished the stature of the United States on the global stage. “Those bonds of international trust are not easily rebuilt,” Whitehead said.
That erosion of trust also underlies Massie’s articles of impeachment against Hegseth. In addition to citing the unconstitutionality of the war in Iran, Massie points to a number of international actions taken under Hegseth’s direction: extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean and Pacific; the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro, a sovereign leader; and the U.S.’s little-discussed “Operation Rough Rider” campaign in Yemen.
By the Numbers
Hegseth makes a compelling scapegoat for Republican losses. It’s not hard to see why many Americans would show up to the ballot box to vote out GOP leaders who supported the war in Iran, as multiple polls pointed to the war in Iran as a main issue for voters.
But the Christian Right continues to stand behind Hegseth’s brand of Christian nationalism. Though it is still too early to have precise numbers, Whitehead says Christian nationalists are “a strong political force, even though they’re a minority.”
People who strongly identify with Christian nationalism account for about 10 percent of the U.S. population, according to recent data from the Public Religion Research Institute. “But when we look at the percentage of the voting population, it goes up. They’re punching above their weight,” Whitehead said. “Even though they’re a small number, they vote in high numbers, like 80-90 percent.”
This group also has an unwavering allegiance to Trump, who has cozied up to evangelical leaders and posted images of himself as Jesus. “They can’t imagine not voting for Republicans. It’s the only Christian thing to do,” Whitehead said. They believe the U.S. is a Christian nation they must defend, and “it’s even more salient because they’re recognizing that they are a minority and that motivates them.”
Holy Authority
During his tenure, Hegseth has represented the most fanatical elements of the Trump administration, playing into the rhetoric of Christian nationalism, Christian religious persecution, and holy war.
In September, Hegseth announced the Pentagon’s new “Office of Religious Affairs,” which will funnel greater resources to military chaplains, contract with faith-based entities, and support faith-based homeschooling for military families, among other activities. Though the announcement is clear not to single out a particular faith, Hegseth has a singular vision of the U.S. as a Christian nation — a vision he shares with his extremist mentor Doug Wilson, who believes women shouldn’t have the right to vote, and his faith adviser Ryan Higgins, whose racist and homophobic posts were exposed last month.
In his September “State of the Force” address, Hegseth preached a jingoist message to troops, to whom he regularly refers to as “warfighters.” Quoting a passage from the book of Isaiah (a prophetic text written in the 8th century BCE), Hegseth intoned, “Lord, here I am, send me.” He then added: “Send me to fight the Red Coats. Send me to fight the Communists. Send me to fight the Islamists. Send me.”
Hegseth’s “send me” message started as a social media campaign that wraps military service in the veneer of a Christian divine mission. His September address demonstrates how other faiths (Islam) or political ideologies (communism) are unwelcome in his Christian nationalist worldview.
The message of Christian nationalism is not an unfamiliar one in the U.S. military, but it has its detractors. Retired Army Maj. Gen. William Razz Waff, an episcopal priest, told the American Homefront Project last month that the influx of evangelical chaplains under Hegseth’s watch has him “very concerned that we’re going to have this funnel of evangelical Christianity, one flavor, and everybody is going to get fire-hosed with this.”
Christian nationalists like Hegseth thrive in hierarchical organizations like the military. They have “a vision of society that is strongly hierarchical, men at the top with women submitting,” Whitehead said. Moreover, they “desire violence as a sign of their masculinity and an enemy they can fight and subdue.”
In the months leading up to the midterm election, Hegseth was busy aligning religious authority with political authority. He also tied his messaging about the war in Iran to masculinity. “In social media and in all sectors of the government,” Christian nationalists “are busy performing strong men,” Whitehead said.
But this viewpoint is losing ground. Whitehead points to a slow decline in Christian nationalist sympathizers combined with Democratic gains, even in Republican districts. Nevertheless, “while that group may be shrinking, it is being distilled to its true believers,” Whitehead told Truthout.
Make Room for the Religious Left
The “blue wave” will put Democratic candidates who campaigned on their faith or a message of religious pluralism into office. Politicians like Sen.-elect James Talarico (D-Texas) used the Christian bible to defend abortion rights and the dismantling the billionaire class. Meanwhile, Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed (D-Michigan) endured hostile scrutiny of his Muslim faith and in response to fearmongering offered a stirring defense of religious freedom and the separation of church and state.
Talarico and El-Sayed also portray a different version of masculinity than the increasingly caricatured machismo of Hegseth, who called military testosterone testing a “sacred duty” for troops.
“So you see Abdul El-Sayed talking about being a servant leader and James Talarico talking about mowing his neighbor’s lawn without asking for anything, and that’s what it means to be a man,” Whitehead said.
“I think it was really important that the political left and people outside the GOP talk about masculinity and ways of being masculine that aren’t just the ways that the right was performing,” Whitehead said.
While it remains to be seen what Congress will do with their new Democratic majorities, there is tentative hope that what journalist Grace Panetta called the “masculinity midterms” will put in place more pluralistic visions of religion and masculinity. “I’m really interested to see how this new Congress will move forward with accountability, with investigation,” Whitehead said. If Congress moves forward to hold Hegseth accountable, it will take more than impeachment to ensure that his legacy of Christian nationalism is rooted out. But it would be a start.
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