Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, has written in a book that he could imagine a scenario in which the US armed forces would be used violently in American domestic politics.
Hegseth, a former elite soldier turned rightwing Fox television personality, is Trump’s choice to lead the Pentagon which controls the gigantic American military – by far the largest armed force in the world.
In one of his five published books he wrote that in the event of a Democratic election victory in the US there would be a “national divorce” in which “The military and police … will be forced to make a choice” and “Yes, there will be some form of civil war.”
Hegseth’s 2020 book exhorts conservatives to undertake “an AMERICAN CRUSADE”, to “mock, humiliate, intimidate, and crush our leftist opponents”, to “attack first” in response to a left he identifies with “sedition”, and he writes that the book “lays out the strategy we must employ in order to defeat America’s internal enemies”.
Hegseth’s rhetoric about perceived “internal” or “domestic enemies”, along with media reports highlighting his tattoo of the crusader motto “Deus Vult”, may ring alarm bells for those concerned by Donald Trump’s repeated threats to unleash the US military, which Hegseth would directly control, on those he has described as “the enemy within”.
The Guardian contacted the Trump transition team seeking comment from Hegseth.
John Whitehouse, news director at Media Matters for America (MMFA) which tracked Hegseth’s Fox career, said that Hegseth has “always given off a proto-fascist vibe”, and that “the thing that appealed to him was going into Iraq as a crusader, and when that went wrong he started looking at America through the same lens”.
Throughout his work, and especially in 2020’s American Crusade (AC), Hegseth paints an apocalyptic picture of American politics, and encourages his fellow rightwingers to see their opponents as an existential threat.
At various points in that book, he describes leftists, progressives and Democrats as “enemies” of freedom, the US constitution and America, and counts Israel among the “international allies” who can help defeat such “domestic enemies”.
Addressing his conservative audience in a chapter of American Crusade entitled Make the Crusade Great Again, he writes: “Whether you like it or not, you are an ‘infidel’ – an unbeliever – according to the false religion of leftism.” He added: “You can submit now or later; or you can fight.”
Later in the book, he writes: “Build the wall. Raise tariffs. Learn English. Buy American. Fight back.”
Elsewhere in American Crusade, he writes: “The hour is late for America. Beyond political success, her fate relies on exorcising the leftist specter dominating education, religion, and culture – a 360-degree holy war for the righteous cause of human freedom.”
In fighting, Hegseth wrote: “Our weapon is American nationalism,” adding: “The Left has tried … to intimidate us into thinking that nationalism is a relic of a bygone era.”
Hegseth has followed his own advice in this respect: his tattoos include the words “We the People”, quoted from the constitution, and a “stylized American flag with its bottom stripe replaced by an AR-15 assault rifle” according to Snopes.com reporting.
In relation to the media, “almost all” politicians and credentialled experts, Hegseth advises readers to “Disdain, despise, detest, distrust – pick your d-words. But all of this must lead to action.”
Some actions he recommends resemble forms of disruption and harassment that Trump-aligned activists have brought to nonpartisan local government bodies.
Hegseth tells readers: “The next time conservative views are squelched in your local school, host a free-speech sit-in in your kids’ school lobby and make your case,” and “When local businesses declare ‘gun free zones,’ remember the Second Amendment, carry your legally owned firearm, and dare them to tell you it’s not allowed.”
In the wake of Trump’s defeat in 2020, media reports noted an uptick in rightwing activists open-carrying firearms at political protests, and there was a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-“critical race theory” protests at school board meetings, with some groups such as Moms for Liberty coordinating efforts to carry out partisan takeovers of school boards.
Hegseth further advises readers: “You know what local politicians fear the most? A cell phone camera in their face.”
In January, the Brennan Center for Justice reported that in the three years since the 6 January 2021 insurrection, local and state elected officials had experienced “a barrage of intimidating abuse”. Their nationwide survey showed that over 40% of state elected officials and 18% of local officeholders had experienced threats or attacks. The numbers balloon to 89% of state legislators and 52% of local officeholders when less severe forms of abuse – insults or harassment such as stalking – are included.
Hegseth explicitly rejects democracy in American Crusade, characterizing it as a leftist demand: “For leftists, calls for ‘democracy’ represent a complete rejection of our system. Watch how often they use the word,” adding: “They hate America, so they hate the Constitution and want to quickly amass 51 percent of the votes to change it.”
He explicitly supports forms of election-rigging through gerrymandering. Fair electoral boundaries, he writes, amount to “Playing nice to placate the so-called middle,” which “has been a losing strategy for patriots for decades”. Since “the other side is stacked with enemies of freedom”, Hegseth argues, “Republican legislatures should draw congressional lines that advantage pro-freedom candidates – and screw Democrats.”
Hegseth addresses the then-looming election repeatedly in the book, at one point writing: “The clash of 2020 is going to focus on the re-election of Donald Trump; but the real clash – underneath it all – is for the soul of America”. He writes: “Yes, the leftist media and machine hate President Trump – but they hate you just as much, if not more.”
And in entertaining the prospect of Trump’s defeat, Hegseth claims that a Biden victory will shatter the US and lead to civil war.
In the first chapter, Our American Crusade, he claims: “The fate of freedom is what is at stake in the 2020 election. The immediate years that follow will, once and for all, determine whether the American experiment in human freedom – the America of our founding – will die, get a national divorce based on irreconcilable cultural and political divisions, or return to its founding principles.”
Later in the book he defines a national divorce as “irreconcilable differences between the Left and the Right in America leading to perpetual conflict that cannot be resolved through the political process”.
The idea of separating America according to ideology has been a rightwing refrain during the Trump era. In recent days, Marjorie Taylor Greene renewed her calls for a “national divorce” that would separate blue and red states, in response to Democratic governors vowing to oppose aspects of Donald Trump’s agenda in his second term after he won the 2024 election.
For Hegseth, such a move would necessarily involve violence.
Among the consequences should Biden win, he predicted, would be that “America will decline and die. A national divorce will ensue. Outnumbered freedom lovers will fight back.”
Continuing, Hegseth writes: “The military and police, both bastions of freedom-loving patriots, will be forced to make a choice. It will not be good. Yes, there will be some form of civil war.”
Hegseth concedes: “It’s a horrific scenario that nobody wants but would be difficult to avoid.”
Additionally, he writes: “If America is split, freedom will no longer have an army.”
The end of the US military – which he elsewhere calls “the only powerful, pro-freedom, pro-Christian, pro-Israel army in the world” – will in turn mean that “Communist China will rise – and rule the globe. Europe will formally surrender. Islamists will get nuclear weapons and seek to wipe America and Israel off the map.”
Victory, however, will mean the defeat of the allied forces of “globalism”, “socialism”, “secularism”, “environmentalism”, “Islamism”, “genderism” and “leftism”, according to Hegseth.
Hegseth expresses an unstinting loyalty to Trump the man.
At one point in the book, he describes a conversation between the two after Trump, at Hegseth’s urging, in 2019 pardoned three service members who had been charged or convicted with alleged war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On Hegseth’s account, Trump called him ahead of the pardon, and the call “ended with a compliment to me that I’ll never forget and might put on my tombstone: ‘You’re a fucking warrior, Pete. A fucking warrior.’ I thanked him for his courage, and he hung up.”
Whitehouse, the MMFA news director, said that while Hegseth had long advocated for policy changes in defense, such as an end to women in combat roles, Trump has picked him due to “knowing and trusting that they have a similar connection to the conservative media audience”.
“Trump, Hegseth, and even JD Vance know that when push comes to shove they’ll align with what that rightwing audience wants,” he added. “Will he dissent on an order to have the military attack protesters? It probably depends on what they think that audience wants at the time.”
For Hegseth’s part, he leaves his readers with the promise: “See you on the battlefield. Together, with God’s help, we will save America. Deus vult!”
