IN 2028, COULD THE CRAZIEST SON OF A BITCH IN THE GOP PRESIDENTIAL RACE BE ... PETE HEGSETH?

Most people were paying attention to other stories early this week and missed this:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday is traveling to Iowa in his “personal capacity,” the Pentagon said in a statement, further fueling speculation that the former Fox News personality is mulling a run for president at some point.

The visit ... comes five months after Hegseth was scheduled to appear at a political rally and fundraising event with Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa), who is running for reelection this year. That trip was postponed after several U.S. troops from Iowa were killed early in the war with Iran.

(Emphasis added.)

Monday's appearance was on behalf of Congressman Nunn, who won in 2022 by just four points and is in a competitive race now. So even though Hegseth has a -22 net approval rating according to recent polls from both Quinnipiac and Marquette, he's popular enough among bubble-dwelling Republicans that Nunn apparently said, "Sure, Pete, come campaign for me. That would be awesome." (Among Republicans, Hegseth's job approval is 79%, according to Quinnipiac.) Previously, in May, Hegseth campaigned for Ed Gallrein, who went on to defeat Thomas Massie in a House primary.

We know that millions of Republicans still think Donald Trump is doing a great job and apparently feel the same way about Hegseth, but is that enough to win him the Republican presidential nomination two years from now? Matt Gertz of Media Matters thinks it's possible:

Hegseth, a bombastic former Fox News weekend host ... may be uniquely attuned to the right's attention economy. He could become the presidential candidate of the right-wing media’s id, running a furious culture war campaign fixated on domestic political enemies that checks all the boxes for authoritarian-minded pundits indifferent to traditional policy issues.

Anti-Muslim. Hegseth ... has decried the “Muslims’ birth rates” in multiple states and fearmongered about the success of Muslim political candidates, warning that “Islamists” are trying “to seed the West with as many Muslims as possible.” ...

Anti-DEI. At Fox, Hegseth was at the forefront of the right’s assault on policy initiatives promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.... He’s now put that into practice at the Pentagon....

Anti-press. ... He’s smeared news outlets as unpatriotic for not running headlines like “Iran increasingly desperate,” and mocked and derided individual reporters, even denouncing his former Fox colleague Jennifer Griffin as “the one who misrepresents the most intentionally.” ...

Anti-immigrant. ... “When you import the Third World, you get Third World hierarchy, values, and chaos,” he said in a November 2024 Fox segment.... As defense secretary, he used a speech in France marking the anniversary of D-Day to attack the “invasion” of migrants hitting European beaches, asking, “When will European capitals do something about that invasion?”

Pro-war crimes. ... At the Pentagon, Hegseth [has] carried out operations in the Middle East, Indian Ocean, eastern Pacific Ocean, and Caribbean Sea that experts say could include war crimes....

Pro-Christian nationalism. ... He invited Pastor Doug Wilson, “a self-described Christian nationalist who wants to repeal a woman's right to vote, has defended slavery and believes homosexuality should be a crime,” to give a sermon at the Pentagon earlier this year.

In his Iowa appearance on Monday, Hegseth very calculatedly used a transphobic slur: “At the Department of War, we do training, not trannies.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used a transphobic slur while speaking at the Iowa State Fair Monday, where he appeared in support of Republican Rep. Zach Nunn, who is running for a third term in Congress.

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— CNN (@cnn.com) August 19, 2026 at 7:22 PM

Would Hegseth actually win the nomination? After Trump won three times, I don't want to argue that any Republican is too extreme to win. But GOP voters thought Trump was a winner, even after he lost the 2020 election (which, of course, they think he won). Given the Iran debacle, Hegseth will have a hard time making the case for himself as a winner.

But Republicans have a history of nearly nominating failed politicians who toss out a lot of red meat. In 2012, they embraced two such candidates, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, before finally settling on Mitt Romney. Hegseth could be the Gingrich or Santorum of 2028.

If he did win the nomination, I think Hegseth would be easier to beat than Vance or Rubio, because he seems more distasteful, with his hair gel, his tattoos, and his Pentagon's open racism and sexism. If he makes a serious run for president, his history of domestic abuse might finally get the spotlight it deserves, as might the weirdness of his church and its repellent pastor, Doug Wilson:

In one famous passage from his book on marriage, Wilson suggests that sexual violence is women's fault for not being submissive enough. "[T]he sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party," he writes. "A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts." The alleged failure of women to submit, he continues, leads men to "dream of being rapists," deprived of the "erotic necessity" found in women's submission....

During the election season, he argued that women's suffrage was a mistake and part of "a long, sustained war on the family."

Post-Trump, I'm not ruling out the possibility that Hegseth could win the nomination. I keep returning to something said in 2017 by Thomas Massie, who's a libertarian, and who saw voters supporting Donald Trump after previously supporting Massie and fellow libertarian Ron Paul:

"All this time," Massie explained, "I thought they were voting for libertarian Republicans. But after some soul searching I realized when they voted for Rand and Ron and me in these primaries, they weren't voting for libertarian ideas—they were voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race. And Donald Trump won best in class, as we had up until he came along."

In 2028, especially when measured against J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, Hegseth might come off as the craziest son of a bitch in the Republican primary race.