The Guardian's Moira Donegan appears none too impressed by the way the Republican Party is rushing to confirm Fox News personality Pete Hegseth to be America's secretary of defense.
In her latest piece, Donegan slams the GOP's "servility" as it tries to jam through a nominee who appears "incompetent and seems to have no redeeming qualities."
In particular, she notes reports that some Republican senators have refused to meet privately with a woman who once accused Hegseth of sexual assault, which she says reflects a total unwillingness of elected officials to use their powers as a coequal branch of the federal government.
"What is happening in the Hegseth confirmation, then, is not merely the nomination of an unqualified and dangerously incompetent man to a position of authority that he can’t handle and does not deserve," she argues. "It is something more like the buckling of constitutional checks and balances in the face of Trump’s authoritarian ambitions – and Elon Musk’s money."
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Donegan thinks that the GOP may come to regret their decision to rubber stamp Hegseth given his likely agenda, however.
"What was perhaps most notable about Hegseth’s testimony was what he did not say: he did not say, though he was asked several times, that he would refuse to carry out an unconstitutional order by Donald Trump," she concludes. "That, too, might be why the president chose him. Our system of government is already broken. But the president-elect seems determined to break it more."