We’ve already joked about Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host that Trump wants to appoint to the position of Defense Secretary. He looks great on TV — probably a major factor in Trump’s choice — and has big muscles and patriotic tattoos.

But this guy, it turns out, isn’t just cosplaying as a tough guy, like a dude who buys a Harley and rides it once a month. He’s a dyed-in-the-wool warmonger. That’s according to a new report from the Washington Post.

His record will of course come under review as he undergoes confirmation hearings, but if Trump has his way, the incoming Senate Majority Leader, John Thune of South Dakota, will immediately call a recess. If he does that, Trump can use recess appointment power to simply install anyone he wants right at the beginning of his administration.

Trump can pack his Cabinet with loyalists and lackeys from day one, if Senate Republicans decide to “obey in advance.”

And a Post examination of Hegseth’s past writings reveals a man who hates diversity of any kind in the military. He believes that women have no role in combat, and that women weaken the military in general. You can likely guess at his views on gay and transgender servicemembers.

Equally importantly, the writings reveal a particular hostility towards Islam. In his 2020 book American Crusade, he laments the Muslim birth rate, calls Muslim “infiltrators” from other countries “leeches” from public assistance, and asserts that Islam “is not a religion of peace, and it never has been.”

From the book: “Our present moment is much like the 11th Century. We don’t want to fight, but, like our fellow Christians one thousand years ago, we must. Arm yourself — metaphorically, intellectually, physically. Our fight is not with guns. Yet.”

But it really is Hegseth’s views on women in the military that are the most worrisome. Of course he decries transgender health care as a “distraction” that weakens the military. Of course he believes that gay servicemembers being allowed to serve openly was just a path to “wokeism” in the military.

His views on women, however, are exemplary of a patriarchal perspective. In his newest book The War on Warriors, Hegseth says “The problem is that a more empathetic and effeminate military isn’t a more efficient one. It’s a more inefficient one. That puts everyone at risk. Which, again, is a really bad thing in the business of killing.”

That’s his characterization of the Defense Department. The business of killing.

In fact, Hegseth doesn’t even think it should be called the Department of Defense anymore. In the book, he promoted the idea of reverting the name back to what it was known as before 1947: The Department of War. That would, I suppose, make him the “War Secretary,” which would be fitting, given his views.

The misogyny is strong, though: “Men are, gasp, biologically stronger, faster and bigger. Dare I say, physically superior,” he writes. He goes on to create a military dichotomy between men and women.

“Dads push us to take risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bikes,” he said. “We need moms. But not in the military, and especially not in combat units.” In other words, if you have to let women in to the Department of Manly Ass-Kicking and Name-Taking, they’d better be there to bake cookies or something.

He was venomously sarcastic when it came to President Biden’s appointment of Lisa Franchetti as the Navy’s first-ever female chief of staff, saying “If naval operations suffer, at least we can hold our heads high.”

Don’t get me wrong. Pete’s hate for women, gays, transgender people, and Muslims in the military (and in general) isn’t limited to just them. He also opposes racial diversity in the military in his newest book, despite the fact that he once claimed that soldiers didn’t care about race.

He took special umbrage with the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — the boss of all branches of the military — for promoting diversity when he was chief of staff of the Air Force.

In a podcast just last week, Hegseth called for Trump to immediately fire General Brown, a Black man, for a memo he signed that called for increasing diversity among officer candidates.

“The tragedy of these emotionally stunted, angry, race-based people is that they have an ax to grind — and will grind it,” he wrote about Brown. Take it to the racist bank: black troops, at all levels, will be promoted simply based on their race. Some will be qualified; some will not be.”

Pete Hegseth would remake the American military in the image of a drill instructor, rather than the profiles of courage and honor and integrity we’ve been working toward since Eisenhower.

Man or woman, gay or straight, black or white, Christian or Muslim, the American military should represent what America really looks like. But Pete Hegseth only sees room for four of those adjectives. Straight, white, Christian males.

Sound familiar?