The MAGA movement remains a dangerous force in American life, but it has never been weaker.

Nobody embodies this dark impotence quite like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The former Fox News host isn’t remotely qualified to head the Pentagon as his testimony in front of Congress this week made clear: Preening, obstinate, and plenty pathetic, he couldn’t muster anything close to a logical defense for the war in Iran. Hegseth isn’t the architect of this conflict — that might be Benjamin Netanyahu — but he’s the chief cheerleader, the face of the chaos and carnage. He’s been unrepentant about the U.S. blowing up an Iranian school, and he refused to walk back a statement that the American military would allow “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.”

“The biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless, and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans,” Hegseth declared at the start of the hearing.

This is not true. The Democrats and (spare) Republicans who oppose the war are standing up for morality and sanity, and most Americans are in their corner. It is hard to find a war in modern times that is simultaneously more........

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