If Senate Democrats’ uncoordinated performance at Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday is a sign of things to come, Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks can breathe easy.

Hegseth breezed through the bulk of the four-hour hearing, most of which he spent talking over Democrats who quietly waited for the “Fox and Friends” host to finish his monologues. Only a few lawmakers tried pushing back on Hegseth’s motor-mouthing, among them Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Maizie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.). But Hegseth, a veteran broadcaster accustomed to combative interviews, knew better than to take the bait.

If Hegseth’s goal was to be uneventful, he largely succeeded. But if Hegseth’s text was flat by design, his subtext was anything but. Time and again, Hegseth revealed himself to be a hard-line Republican partisan with big ideas and little practical understanding of America’s most important government department.

Luckily for Hegseth, today’s Republican Party doesn’t view incompetence as a disqualifying factor.

Hegseth’s years at Fox News have evidently resulted in his mastery of the language of right-wing grievance. He ranted about the dangers of “electric tanks” and peppered his responses with condemnations of the “woke military.” He pledged to........

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