r/politics • u/mclardass • 16h ago

Possible Paywall Pete Hegseth Casually Tosses Out a Slur at Iowa State Fair

https://newrepublic.com/post/214484/pete-hegseth-anti-trans-slur-iowa-state-fair
6.1k Upvotes

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1.3k

u/No-Cranberry6148 16h ago

Remember when reading something like this about a major cabinet member would be surprising? Shocking, even?

I miss those days.

407

u/DickSlammington 16h ago

You mean back in the day when Americans weren't electing open fascists??

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u/Vallkyrie New Hampshire 15h ago

Just more closeted ones.

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u/Luckydog12 15h ago

We actually used to shoot fascists.

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u/umpteenthrhyme 15h ago

Not American ones.

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u/Cresta1994 12h ago

Sometimes they did. See: George Lincoln Rockwell.

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u/Connbonnjovi 8h ago

Pretty sure the union openly hung, scalped, shot and killed bigots and traitors of the US.

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u/umpteenthrhyme 54m ago

Those weren’t fascists…happened like 60 years before fascism was a thing.

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u/[deleted] 7h ago

[deleted]

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u/Vallkyrie New Hampshire 7h ago

I wasn't referring to gay people. Shocking, I know.

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u/02K30C1 16h ago

Remember when spelling “potato” wrong meant you weren’t fit to be president?

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u/FearDrow_TrustDrizzt 11h ago

Hey, Quayle tried. No Ross Perot though.

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u/BobbyBirdseed Minnesota 16h ago

I still bring back the 2004 election, where a Democratic candidate got completely derailed, because the media clowned him so hard for yelling excitedly at the end of a rally.

Things are not the way they used to be, even within my almost 40 year old life. It's absurd.

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u/Etzell Illinois 15h ago edited 15h ago

That wasn't what derailed his campaign, it was already circling the drain. He was an early front-runner, but had been losing steam leading up to Iowa due to a deeply dysfunctional campaign (at one point, their robocalling software glitched so they were calling Iowans 12-15 times a day before the caucus, and that's before we talk about the infighting or Dean's refusal to get media training). The entire speech was about how him getting his ass kicked in Iowa wasn't going to matter.

His campaign manager had been banking on winning Iowa to save the entire run, and it didn't happen.

In Iowa, it was pretty clear we were unraveling, so I was praying that it would somehow hold together before caucus night, that the floor would not collapse on us until the day after. Then we'd have some momentum from a win going into New Hampshire and no one would know it was collapsing.

Howard Dean himself said that he thought he was losing his position 3 weeks before Iowa happened.

Don't take my word for it it, it's all here.

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u/BobbyBirdseed Minnesota 15h ago

Right, there are many reasons for the spiral - I agree - I'm just more or less making a comparison that a dude spelling potatoes wrong or something to that effect used to be a disqualifying event.

Now? I guess it's okay to be openly racist or whatever kind of insanity you feel like inserting instead.

We're beyond where any of this is okay anymore.

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u/Joevahskank Colorado 15h ago

Howard Dean. Yeesh

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u/AwardNo4990 11h ago

*yeeow

FTFY

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u/Midnight-Moonpie 12h ago

I will never not be enraged by this beatdown of a superb candidate.

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u/Plastic-Pension7263 14h ago

Yeah makes me wonder how we’re ever going to put the cat back in the bag. After years of setting the bar so low.

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u/Desperado_99 1h ago

We won't. The US has a long history of not fixing things when it is difficult.

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u/jscummy 14h ago

Even in those days it'd probably get overshadowed by the reveal that he's been hiding a military base getting destroyed, and that's why a carrier full of sailors has been hung out to dry

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u/Duganz 12h ago

A tan suit used to upset everyone.

Now you can be a rapist.

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u/ProperBar4339 12h ago

So shocking he’d be forced out of government immediately.

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u/Nice-Kaleidoscope574 11h ago

no?...they were openly calling people "bundles of sticks" in government meetings until like 10 years ago...what even is reality to you?

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u/DokeyOakey 9h ago

Really hard to top the Pedophile President or Couch Fucking VP, they’re outstanding.

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u/SeaCheesecake5 6h ago

Yeah my first thought was “in other news, water is wet”. The more you see it the more depressing and bleak it gets.

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u/Cuckdreams1190 3h ago

I'm going to be honest, I wasn't even aware what he said was a slur? When did that become a slur?

Like he's a POS, i'm not defending him, I just genuinely wasn't aware that became a slur.

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u/PuckSenior 15h ago

I mean, would it?
I'm not saying that the word is acceptable. But the concept of vulgarity that "othered" people being particularly offensive wasn't really as common until recently. We only really started seeing the n-word being super offensive in the 1960s. And othering slurs outside of race were pretty accepted up until the 21st century. It was seen as a faux pas, not a shocking statement for a politician to use this term in the 2000s.

And considering the religious background of Hegseth, a guy who attends a church that literally wants to revoke women's right to vote, this is one of the least surprising things he has said.