How long did it take you to vote? You probably drove to a polling station, waited, filled out a ballot, and drove home. Or maybe you skipped that and requested an absentee ballot. Either way, probably at least a half an hour. And unless you live in a swing district or state, you might not even believe it mattered.
But there’s something you can do with a half an hour that does matter: contact your senators. Tell them you care about Trump’s cabinet nominations.
I know you care about justice, so let me encourage you, this moment is worth participating in.
Let’s talk for a minute about Pete Hegseth, Trump’s new nominee for defense secretary. Here are some things we know.
He believes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts are destroying the military. He vowed to fire any “general, admiral, whatever that was involved in any of the DEI woke [expletive].”
Hegseth, a military veteran and Fox News Channel host, is tattooed with alt-right anti-Muslim hate group slogans. The tattoos—a Jerusalem cross and the words Deus Vult—match symbols on the gunman in the 2023 anti-Hispanic Texas mass shooting, the shooter in the 2019 New Zealand anti-Muslim mosque shooting, and protestors in the deadly 2017 alt-right Charlottesville rally.
He has been accused of sexual assault.
He believes women should not serve in military combat roles because it makes the military “less lethal” and because “over human history, men in those positions are more capable.”
He mocks trans military members.
He disregards Geneva Conventions on war ethics and speaks flippantly of nuclear warfare, saying of the U.S. nuclear attacks on Japan, “They won. Who cares.”
He wants to change the name of the Defense Department to War Department.
He calls himself a Christian, but his Christian nationalism has nothing to do with the Christianity I follow. He regularly evokes with nostalgia the Crusades, as in the title of his book, American Crusade. He takes Jesus’ words out of context to make Jesus the kind of violent militant ruler that Jesus explicitly refused to become. His tattoo of a cross and shield, he says, depicts Matthew 10:34, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
All this is not okay.
Appointing Hegseth would exacerbate the already serious problem of military leaders not taking seriously sexual assault reports. By ramping up restrictive stereotypes against women (which I explained in this earlier post), research suggests that Hegseth’s leadership would push women to prove themselves even more war-mongering than men.
Hegseth pushes a “shoot now think later” culture that makes killing into a sport and a proof of masculinity. (This is not new, in a country where the military invests heavily in video games as a recruitment tactic). He valorizes hate-based strategizing in ways that will embolden both domestic terrorists and international war criminals.
Let us be clear: killing is not a game. I for one believe that every human of every skin tone, religion, and nationality is made in the image of our Creator. When Jesus said love your enemies, I don’t think he meant to measure your worth by how many you can bomb.
Cabinet nominations need a simple majority vote from the senate. It’s possible that Trump will try some tricky tactics to override this process. That means it’s going to take commitment for senators to do something about this, and for that they need to know that their constituents care.
Hegseth is only one of many cabinet choices that matter for justice in current and future generations. If you have time for a deeper dive, you might also write in about the vaccine-skeptic Health and Human Services nominee or the climate-skeptic energy secretary nominee.
Please open your calendar now and set aside 15-30 minutes to write to your legislator.
Only a small fraction of voters ever contact their legislators, so every message counts many times more than the time it takes to vote. Right now we’re in a narrow window when senators will be weighing in on Trump’s cabinet nominations.
This website makes it simple. Enter your state to find your senators. Then click “contact” to go directly to an online form for that senator.
Below I’ve copied the letter I’m sending, which you’re welcome to use as a starting point. I’ve also made it available as a template to download and edit here.
I recommend focusing on 2-3 key points and including something of why this matters to you personally. Don’t stress about getting it perfect—sending something is better than nothing.
Thank you for all you do to make this country and this world a safer and more loving place.
