The defense secretary has floated a White House run with close friends and associates, two people said. And Hegseth sparked speculation with an event in Iowa this month.

I think he might just have a fetish for losing.

  • ulkesh@piefed.socialEnglish
    371·
    9 hours ago

    You guys laugh, but there seems to be enough wannabe-macho small-penis dudebro idiot voters that could get the loser elected. Do not assume it won’t happen.

    • ruan@lemmy.eco.br
      51·
      6 hours ago

      I’m not from the USA, neither an English native speaker, but is Peter Hegseth in any way charismatic? I find Trump totally repulsive, however I can understand his “charism” that attracts people to vote for him when he’s there mumbling his rampts and narcistic histories. So far, since 2025, that I can remember, anytime I saw any video of Peter Hegseth speaking he seems to have the same charism as a door.

      This, would, of course, be important for a presidential candidate If there is any “democracy” left during the election time, since Trump’s popularity is decreasing, his government does not seem too promising on having “good results” to show when the election time comes, therefore the transfer of charism and therefore votes that Trump would be able to execute would be limited, and the new candidate would have to work on his own.

      Given the current state of affairs, as an external observator and not too familiar with USA real politics dynamics, I find it’s easier for Trump and republicans to continue the rampamt breaking of laws and just really push for a 3rd term, as he’s been publicly “teasing” since his 2024 campaign…

      P.S.: Just to finish up, there’s also the fact that Trump is old as f*, and seems to be becoming more senile by the minute (i.e.: his almost at the age his dad was diagnoses with dementia iirc), so maybe the thing is they would just be forced to move on from him and the “3rd term” thing would really just not come to fruition due to bad timing (Trump going full demented, dying, etc…). Or maybe if his popularity keeps going down, who knows if the democracts can obtain any majority in the midterm elections and put up an impeachment on both houses this time, this would also chance the outlook of things and force the republicans to choose a new candidate sooner than later.

      • decolo@piefed.socialEnglish
        2·
        4 hours ago

        The only thing hegseth has going for him is his ‘TV look’ and willingness to eat shit if it owns the libs (our conservatives have no shame, and love embarrassing themselves to get a reaction from ‘the left’)

  • quick_snail@feddit.nl
    6·
    7 hours ago

    Actually, I hope he does run. He would make it easier for progressive to win because everyone hates him.

      • SailorMoss@sh.itjust.works
        5·
        5 hours ago

        He got us involved in an extremely dumb and pointless war and lost. If that doesn’t scream prime Republican presidential nominee material; I don’t know what does.

        If I was a bettin’ man he’d be on my 2028 shortlist.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      9 hours ago

      Isn’t he tied to the Seven Mountain Mandate insanity?

      Dipshit probably believes in that Left Behind bullshit, too.

      • decolo@piefed.socialEnglish
        3·
        4 hours ago

        Every noteworthy member of the executive branch is now a seven mountains mandate Christian dominionist at this point.

  • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
    6·
    8 hours ago

    American politics is so fucking whack, but I’m still gonna say he has no chance and if I get egg on my face I get egg on my face.

    Big part of how Trump one was playing both sides with the tough guy act but also lying that he’d stay out of foreign entanglements. Hegseth is pure tough guy act, and also started and lost a war with Iran, so he has absolutely no ability to court the libertarian/isolationist-minded people on the right who felt burned by Bush. It seems like he’s just delusional and has bought into his own propaganda.

    • sun_is_ra@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      8 hours ago

      Right but imagine you are a hardcore MAGA supporter and found that Trump won’t be running for a 3ed term, where can you find someone shittier than Pete to elect?

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
        2·
        7 hours ago

        You can’t win with just that one type of guy, is what I’m saying. There’s the macho nationalist type of guy on the right, absolutely, but there’s also the libertarian type that’s generally “anti-war” on the basis that war is the government doing stuff and the government doing stuff is always bad.

        In 2000, Bush ran as being more isolationist than Gore and staying out of foreign conflicts (after the failure in Vietnam, nobody wanted to be associated with that), then as soon as he got ahold of power started and lost pointless wars of aggression. So then Bush became unpopular on the right and Trump ran as an “anti-establishment” type (after the failure in Afghanistan, nobody wanted to be associated with that) claiming to be a “peace” candidate, and he won, and as soon as he got access to the levers of power he started bombing Syria but nobody really noticed or cared for some reason so then he just repeated the same lies and got into power again and immediately went and bombed Iran, and going forward nobody’s gonna want to be associated with that.

        There’s plenty of figures that are positioning themselves to step into that role next, like MTG, Tucker Carlson, and Tulsi Gabbard. The sorts of people who bought into Trump being a peace candidate are dumb as rocks and lack basic pattern recognition so they will absolutely just keep falling for the same trick over and over again. But they do need to be tricked and lied to for the right to have a winning coalition.

        It is kinda exciting on some level, like, say Tucker Carlson got his hands on the levers of power, he’d obviously start another war of aggression somewhere, but who really knows where it’d be? And when that war proves to be a hopeless debacle, who will be the one on the right to say that, unlike Tucker who just loves getting into pointless destructive conflicts (who could’ve predicted it?), they actually… you know what, I can’t do this, it’s not exciting, it’s literally just rebooting the same plotline over and over, and I’m gonna be forced to watch it until I’m dead in the ground.

        Point being, my prediction is that the Republican nominee will either be someone who has some pretense of being able to distance themself from the Iran War, or they will lose.

  • bedwyr@piefed.caEnglish
    13·
    10 hours ago

    We all thought the current president was going to lose in 2016 when he was dicking up the republican primaries. Don’t discount these hacks. RFK would be the strongest challenger if not for his speech impediment, how is he going to run a nazi rally with that voice?

    Vance won’t get it, Rubio won’t get it.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      9 hours ago

      I still laugh when someone watching him doing his manly macho bigly boy warrior ethos “exercise” and they shouted “all the way down, all the way UP!”, LOOOOoooool.

      I wonder if they kept their job or if they could cover and say they were directing that at others there out of shot.

      Anyway, I remember coaches and gym teachers that would STOP COUNTING when counting reps and you did bad form. Whoever was counting for little Petey here should have done that. He was not doing anything useful here. I think I counted two actual reps out of the supposed 40-something, LOL.

      https://www.newsweek.com/pete-hegseth-mocked-by-critics-over-workout-video-fitness-experts-weigh-in-12066692

      • tea_n_typewriters@lemmy.world
        2·
        8 hours ago

        I remember coaches and gym teachers that would STOP COUNTING when counting reps and you did bad form.

        The military does the same thing during testing.

        “44…45…46…46…all the way down…46…46…”