Meritocracy, Mediocrity, & DEI: SECDEF* Edition
There is no such thing as "the perfect candidate."
As Steven covered last night, President-elect Trump has announced that he plans to nominate Pete Hegseth, a Fox News opinion program co-host, author, and Army National Guard officer as his Secretary of Defense. Our site founder, military veteran, and Professor at the Marine Corps University, James Joyner has some feelings on this nomination:
I could stretch his qualifications to say he was a reasonable pick for a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense position, but it would be hard. He’s not even remotely qualified for SECDEF.
Fellow veteran and later government intelligence worker @Andy agrees:
The only positive thing I can say is that at least he has actual combat deployments. At 44, he would just be a bit older than Rumsfeld, who has kept the crown as the youngest SECDEF in the history of the position, but he doesn’t have the resume Rumsfeld had.
Not a good pick.
We’ll get back to Hesgeth and credentials in a moment. First, I want to examine a statement the presumptive nominee has made indicating he intends to take on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (aka the dreaded DEI) in the military. From Reuters:
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has picked as his secretary of defense Pete Hegseth, a Fox News commentator and veteran who has expressed disdain for so-called “woke” policies of Pentagon leaders, opposed women in combat roles, and even questioned whether the top American general was in his position because of his skin color.
If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Hegseth could make good on Trump’s campaign promises to rid the U.S. military of generals who he accuses of pursuing progressive policies on diversity in the ranks that conservatives have rallied against
It could also set up a collision course between Hegseth and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, a former fighter pilot with command experience in the Pacific and the Middle East, who Hegseth accused of “pursuing the radical positions of left-wing politicians.”
[…]
Hegseth also took aim at Joint Chiefs Chairman Brown in particular, asking whether he would have gotten the job if he were not Black.
“Was it because of his skin color? Or his skill? We’ll never know, but always doubt – which on its face seems unfair to CQ. But since he has made the race card one of his biggest calling cards, it doesn’t really much matter,” he wrote.
Let’s get something out of the way before continuing. Provided they meet the necessary Constitutional requirements, Presidents can pick whomever they want for Cabinet positions and other appointments. Hegseth and Trump’s other nominees appear to do that.
Whether those nominees are qualified to serve in their position isn’t a Constitutional question. It’s a matter of opinion tied to one’s definition of “qualified” and what the person doing the appointing is looking for. And in most cases, “qualified” comes down to more than any single factor. The problem is that many people get this idea of “qualified” tied up with our personal beliefs about meritocracy and the idea that there is a single “best person” for a given position.
This takes us back to Hegseth and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Comparing their two resumes, there is no question that Brown is more qualified regarding military matters than Hegseth. Hegseth’s record is… well, mediocre. Then we get to Hegseth’s record of managing large, complex institutions… which is nonexistent.
When it comes down to things, the only immediately obvious places where he appears to be near the “top of his class” are (a) being a Fox News Host (where, let’s face it, he’s mid) and (b) being a fighter for and a loyalist to Trump (here I’ll give him a nod and say he’s among the top).
Now granted I will admit he’s probably THE TOP person who fits those qualifications: of being a conservative news host who served in the military and is fiercely loyal to Trump. And I hope everyone notices that there is a lot of “I”–Identity (of the dreaded DEI)–built into creating that specific and narrow list of qualifications.
Again, it’s the President’s prerogative to select for those type of qualifications, but no one should pretend that picking the top person from the handful of people who fit a very, very, very narrow category is “meritocracy at work.”
For the record, many of Trump’s selections have been anything but meritocratic. Does anyone believe that Matt Gaetz is a meritocratic pick for Attorney General? Or Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Security? Are there no other people more qualified for those positions in all of the United States?
And yet, there will be people who will argue that all of these are meritocratic choices. Those same people will probably take Hegseth’s side when he chooses in his comments to reduce the choice of Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to a single factor overwhelming factor: race.
To some degree, I understand the temptation to do that: unlike being in the military or being a TV personality, race is something that people (generally speaking) cannot choose to be. And knowing that something immutable, such as race, is being incorporated into a decision can feel uncomfortable.
We should also feel uncomfortable when reducing any hiring or nomination decision to just race (like Hegseth seems to be doing). The issue is in his phrasing: “Was it because of his skin color? Or his skill?” is that “or”–i.e. setting up a binary where it has to be one “OR” the other. That “or” also has the added value of implying that anyone who isn’t white will never be qualified on the basis of “skill” because we can always ask that question of them.*
All that said, I suspect that there is a far larger pool of skilled candidates who happen to have that skin color (if it was a consideration) than the pool of *checks notes*: conservative news hosts who served in the military and are fiercely loyal to Trump.
Perhaps Trump has done us a favor because he’s demonstrating that–at least for him–these cabinet positions are not about meritocracy in any conventional sense. I hope we all keep that in mind the next time we are tempted to use terms like “DEI hire” to invalidate the skills and qualifications of people whose politics don’t align with ours.
* – Note that I haven’t seen the usual anti-DEI folks question the role that race, ethnicity, and gender played nominations of Marco Rubio or Tulsi Gabbard.
Only if the person under consideration is non-white.
After all, that for over 200 years presidents were always white men is just a coincidence. Race just wasn’t a factor in those halycon days.
Here is the same link I posted to the forum about the upside to this choice:
“Popehat“
@charontwo:
David Graham made an interesting point in The Atlantic today: Gabbard, Hegseth, and Gaetz all hate the departments they’ve been chosen by Trump to head.
As a white male, I’ll freely admit that I used to get upset when I saw a minority/female in a position of power-authority, especially one I thought I might want to have one day, because I assumed they didn’t deserve to be there (and I, of course, did). And then I worked with several such people, and realized that, first, they’d had to work far harder for much longer to get where they were than I had, and second, that once you’re going higher in an organization, there is almost never a single “best candidate” for any role. And I do wonder what it says about someone who’s never realized either of those things.
I hope it really pisses Hegseth off that at least half the mentions of his name are misspelled. “Hesgeth.”
@CSK: I do wonder how much of this is Trump just deciding to go to war with Senate Republicans immediately, because if they approve this bunch of people, what won’t they approve?
@charontwo:
Frankly, in general Dems should simply step aside and let trump be trump and if he’s gone to far, let the R’s stop him.
Trump during the campaign made all sorts of threats/promises, but two, immigrants and tariffs he needs to pursue to have any credibility with the MAGAt legions. White is correct, the incompetence of his cabinet selections won’t help him reach his goals.
But another promise is to decapitate the bureaucracy. Let’s leave aside for a moment that congress could pass enabling legislation to do so, which would take at least a year and forget about court challenges. Even if the Project 2025 people have binders of trump loyalists, it will take years to integrate those new managers into the system. And given the nature of trump and MAGA, the whole process will be hindered by churn, turnover and infighting.
Pop some popcorn, crack open your favorite beverage and watch. Among the carnage will be things we care about, but like the alcoholic that needs to hit bottom before he begins the road to recovery, so must the US. We’re entering the mid point of the fall of the American empire. Enjoy.
From what I’ve read about affirmative action in college admissions is not that some students with darker shades of skin are not qualified, but that they’re not among the top scoring applicants in the admissions race.
My non-alma matter the Tec de Monterrey (I didn’t come close to graduating), admitted everyone who passed the admission exam. If not enough slots were available for all who did, then the cutoff was by date of application. Now, I took the high school admission test. But I learned the one for college is the same, only with an additional math exam that includes algebra, trigonometry, set theory, analytic geometry, and calculus. And if you failed on calculus, you could take a remedial course on your first semester.
Things might have changed since then.
What I understand about US college admissions, is that much more gets taken into account. Like extracurricular activities, prospects for collegiate sports, essays, interviews, and who knows what else. All this gets a score, and the top scorers (and legacies and children of donors, I assume), get admitted.
Fine, but a Hispanic or African American or Asian kid might meet the actual academic requirements and be a perfectly good college prospect, without being among the top applicants. So they get admitted on DEI grounds. They’ll likely graduate, or at least the groups made up of such kids will graduate at the average levels of all other students. But what get seen is that unqualified candidates are forced in while qualified white kids get pushed out.
@Kevin: I think it’s also an exercise to see who in the Senate is “in” and who is “out.”
The first thing Trump did was state that Haley and Pompeo would not be given positions in his administration. Then we have these picks. Unsurprisingly, the main qualification Trump cares about is loyalty to Trump. Most people with competence or experience have already burned bridges.
@Kathy:
This is what as known as “Ivy League Admissions”. Schools such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and smaller liberal-arts colleges such as Oberlin do things this way.
Many, many other schools, such as my old school, the University of Washington, take everyone who meets the requirements. And I do mean everyone. This is far more common in the US, it just doesn’t get any press.
You gotta admit, these nominees gambled and won. While other people questioned whether Trump was fit and could be re-elected, these folks went all in on loyalty, knowing that they could be awarded a big payoff if Trump came back in power.
Of course you could say, it wasn’treally that much of a gamble. Gabbard wasn’t going to be a star for Democrats. Most of Gaetz’s co-workers hate him. Hegseth’s kids and ex-wife that he cheated on have no use for him. Why not throw your lot in with the Donald?
@Andy:
Completely agree.
Though, honestly, I don’t have any issues with Pompeo not being part of that conversation. I think Rubio is a better candidate for Secretary of State than Pompeo.
In the words of Senator Roman Hruska (R-Neb) WRT the 1970 nomination of Harold Carswell to the Supreme Court:
@Kathy: There are universities that instead of accepting, say, the top 20% of all applicants or whatever, will accept the top 20% of applicants from each high school that applies, in the hope of ensuring a more diverse class. And there are places that weigh things other than academics highly enough that people who aren’t academically qualified are admitted. In both cases, people who are more academically qualified can be excluded. And that can lead to problems where people are admitted who literally can’t do the coursework, which is usually more of an indictment of the high schools they’re coming from then of the people themselves.
But all of this also begs the question of what the purpose of college is, and what it even means to be qualified for a given college. We pretend that college is for education, but in some cases, it’s really to generate pro football players, or let people network with future tech leaders, or …
@Matt Bernius:
I’m not defending Pompeo, just noting that two people with experience who supported Trump this cycle, were singled out by Trump as not getting any role in the administration. That’s remarkable and very telling IMO.
@CSK:
Gabbard is a Russian tool.
“Tim Snyder”
” …
Trump knows that Russia’s backing of him is not a hoax, and Putin knows that it is not a hoax. Russia’s support for him is so much on Trump’s mind that he seeks to appoint as CIA director someone who believes will expunge the record of what Trump called in the announcement “fake Russian collusion.” In fact, the CIA at the time, along with all other US intelligence agencies, judged that Russia had intervened to support the Trump campaign. After the election, the evidence only mounted. I wrote an entire book that led to this episode (Road to Unfreedom), tracing its sources back to ideological changes in Russia and technological changes that allowed for the intervention. The Mueller Report, though little read and dismissed, actually makes the case quite indisputably that Russia supported Trump; indeed, even its critics did not directly question that, but rather focused on the idea that it did not prove collusion. This was not really true, either; there was plenty of collusion, but Mueller thought that this was better left for an impeachment than a prosecution, which got us into the square dance of legal irresponsibility around Trump in which we still find ourselves.
… “
@Kevin: Texas has a policy that allows automatic admission to students in the top 10% of their class (except for UT in which the top 5% are automatically admitted. I think this is a decent compromise because it spreads automatic admission to rural, low income, or minority rich schools. It also eliminates the GPA gamesmanship that goes on as well as the advantage wealthy suburban students have in access to SAT prep classes, AP courses, etc.
@Andy:
@Matt Bernius:
The word loyalty is bandied about a lot in connection with the felon, but ti’s not loyalty that he wants.
Set aside that loyalty is earned and reciprocated. It also means pointing out flaws, errors, blunders, mistakes, cruelty, and so on. Steering someone away from an impractical course of action to a practical one. Providing better options, or plain providing options.
The felon wants none of that. He wants uncritical obedience, flattery, and willingness to go under the bus for him, and then be vilified and denigrated by him.
@Kathy: The character that comes to mind is Grima Wormtongue.
@Scott:
I love that quote and plan to use it in the future.
@Andy:
I totally get that. I didn’t mean to imply you were endorsing Pompeo and I agree with your overall point once again!
Hegseth isn’t good enough to be on a weekday program. He co-hosts a weekend program which even at Fox means he’s at best a part of the second string.
This is like nominating Ryan Fitzpatrick to the a hall of fame for the NFL. The guy’s facial hair doesn’t make up for his inability to do the job being examined.
Ryan Fitzpatrick does have an economics degree from Harvard, so he’d likely do better at being the secretary of defense than this hegseth, who I’m not entirely sure is a real person.
@CSK:
This is basically what he did the first time, isn’t it? Appoint people who wanted to eliminate the departments he nominated them to lead.
@wr: I was struggling with that, TBH. I know I did it several times the other day and may not have even caught all of them. I thought I had fixed in in the photo caption (that typo is mine, not Matt’s).
@Gavin: Fitz-magic, at least, was a starter at times in his career.
Hegseth barely qualifies for those backup QB commercials.
@drj:
Trump, Vance, and Gaetz are in keeping with this status quo. Mediocre and unqualified — but beneficiaries of America’s standard default affirmative action for white men.
None are qualified for to be president, VP, Sec. of Defense, or President. They are all, in rightwing parlance, “DEI hires” and just there to satisfy the conservative identity politics of white grievance and male resentment.
Were they black women their resumes would have them laughed out of the room, and two would already be in prison for sex crimes and/or high treason.
Somewhat ironically, it’s the ethnic minorities Trump has nominated who are marginally qualified. Rubio is a weak beta male and lightweight, per Trump’s nickname for him, but the most serious of the bunch. Gabbard is underqualified but more qualified (on paper) than Trump, Vance, Hegseth, and Gaetz.
Gabbard is disqualified because a kook compromised by Assad and Putin. I’m with Sleeping Dog. This is the clownery the poorly educated wanted, let em have it.
@charontwo:
”Collusion” is not a legal term, which has allowed as awful lot of goal post moving. When Mueller was appointed there was a big deal in the MSM that he was a tough, dedicated ex marine. Turned out to be a milquetoast institutionalist like Garland. Although Mueller had the excuse he reported to Bill Barr.
When we suspect the president is unduly influenced by an enemy I wouln’t think innocent until proven guilty to be the correct standard. But doing anything about it would require someone stick his neck out.
@Kathy:
Because so many parents want to believe their kid is a super special unique prodigy destined for greatness. Anybody who actually attended a selective college ought to know better.
Rarely a month passes without someone finding out I graduated from the University of Southern California (University of Spoiled Children) and overreacting. I typically cut them off, “No need to be impressed. I’m not.”
Most of my peers were perfectly capable, nice people. Some were quite smart, and/or talented in various areas. But I’ve witnessed actual brilliance in my family; I’m relatively bright and I’m not close. In five years at USC, I rarely encountered truly exceptional work or ideas from classmates or faculty.
A gifted child with the right values and work ethic will likely do pretty good in life, no matter where they go to school. The sturm and drang over admissions to these overrated institutions — thanks to helicopter parent delusion that their brat was the last genius out — is ridiculous.
@gVOR10: That.
@Scott:
I had to google that.
Huh…I thought the “I” was for “Inclusion.” Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Someone posted yesterday after the Gabbard nomination that this isn’t a cabinet, it’s a junk drawer.
@Jay L Gischer:
@Kevin:
@DK:
Universities in other countries differ in many other ways. Like sports, for instance. Many Mexican universities have athletic programs, many have football teams, a few even own professional soccer teams, but there’s nothing comparable to US college football and basketball, with huge leagues, large TV income, and nationwide following.
As to automatic admissions, anyone who graduates from a public school is entitled to admission at the National Autonomous University (UNAM). Graduates from private schools have to take an admission exam. Graduates from the Tec’s high schools, like me, have automatic admission to the Tec’s universities.
There are several state universities, and several federal ones as well. In theory they’re all autonomous. That is, they largely govern themselves even if they take state and/or federal funds. But things like the public school automatic admission policy is a law passed by the government, not by UNAM’s board and regent.
So, it’s not hard to get a college education here. UNAM charges no tuition at all. Other public universities are rather cheap, and I suspect even the private ones, like the Tec or Anahuac* or the Iberoamerican University, charge tuition that would seem unbelievably low to most Americans. We certainly don’t have lots of people paying off student loans.
*I’ve some affection for Anahuac, because they offered use of their campus as a vaccination site. I got my two of Pfizer and one AZ booster there.
@DK:
You’re putting it better than I did.
This reminds me of a black woman back in grad school. We had a couple of seminars together and her work (at least what I saw of it) was… not good.
Still, she got hired at a pretty prestigious institution. In fact, she got the best job of anyone I knew there – by far. This was clearly an affirmative action hire. There was pretty widespread agreement on this.
But what struck me at that time was that the only affirmative action hires that stand out in our mind are those that do not benefit mediocre white men. I saw plenty of white male mediocrities in academia and nobody batted an eye.
But if a minority gets an undeserved break, somehow the end is nigh.
Matt, one problem with the following :
The “E” in DEI stands for equity.
As in.. hire and fire decisions are based solely on objective capability to do the job, not eliminated or hired based on their politics alignment.
You might recognize this as exactly backwards from the casual insult that “DEI” is often taken to mean.
A competent person hired into Trump’s cabinet would therefore be a “DEI Hire” because they would be chosen over the incompetent Republican suck-up.
General Brown’s record:
In MAGA world, Brown was “a DEI hire” totally unqualified for his position.
Hegseth, on the other hand, served a tour as a platoon lieutenant in Iraq, got two participation trophies, and is therefore eminently qualified to be Brown’s boss.
This is the kind of “reasoning” which dominates MAGA conversation. But Bernie Sanders thinks Harris lost because Democrats “abandoned the working class”.
@Ken_L:
They’re saying, many people are saying, that Hegseth is an Affirmative Action hire.
For all the Radical Right’s bleating and bloviating about ‘elites’ they sure seem to love their elitists. Hegseth went to Harvard and Princeton, Cruz to Harvard and Princeton, Josh Hawley to Harvard and Stanford, JD Vance to Yale … etc
@Scott:
Today Roman Hruska would be triumphant, and feeling the hrubris that comes with victory.
No, see, their elites are fine. When the Radical Right bleats about elites, elk-like, they mean the other elites!
So stupid that the meta of much of history appears to be multiple bands of rich people fighting for dominance and that none are particularly different.