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If the Pete Hegseth story were written up as fiction, readers would likely dismiss it as too farcical to be believed. Here you have a former soldier, flagged by a fellow service member as a potential “insider threat” for his crusader-inspired tattoo, dogged by allegations of excessive drinking, and who appears to have few leadership qualifications apart from a certain television-friendly swagger.

Upon becoming the “Secretary of War”, he shares operational details with a group chat accidentally containing a leading journalist, and watches on as his own secretary of the army quit while reportedly privately warning that Hegseth is inflicting “generational damage”. And now, our reader would say, you want me to believe this man takes professional direction from one key adviser – and this collaborator in his glorious career is his wife?

Actually, it’s his third wife. Her name is Jennifer Rauchet and they met at Fox News, where they were colleagues, he as a co-host of and she as an executive producer. Jennifer was raised in Maryland and graduated with a degree in journalism from Towson University. Her job at Fox was to serve up red meat to the entertainment network’s grievance-hungry base, and she clearly saw something appetising in Hegseth.

Rauchet was married with three children, and Hegseth was married with three children too, when they started their workplace affair. The lovers found religion, and not a moment too soon. The couple’s first child was born in August 2017 and they married two years later, in August 2019.

They have worked closely together since. Remember the texting fiasco where Hegseth disclosed mission-critical operational details? Jennifer was in a similar Signal group chat, along with Hegseth’s brother, in which largely the same information was shared. When Hegseth sat down with top British defence officials to discuss a concerning pause in US intelligence-sharing with Ukraine, Jennifer was there too (though the Pentagon said she only stayed for introductions). When Hegseth staged a video shoot of himself in a T-shirt reading “This Is War”, pumping up sailors and Marines on the warship USS Boxer in Singapore in May 2026, she was there again, in a matching “This Is War” T-shirt, working out alongside the troops.

When Hegseth reportedly wanted to hit back at the mainstream media for publishing unflattering pieces about his tenure, Jennifer was there to advise on which ones to boot from the press room. When potential hires showed up for interviews at the Pentagon, they reportedly found to their surprise that the person interviewing them was not the Secretary of War but his wife.

This past August, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to create the President’s Military Spouse Commission. There are already several organisations tasked with improving the lives of military families, but this one seemed tailor-made for a special someone in the Office of the Secretary of Defence. Needless to say, Trump appointed Jennifer Hegseth as chair.

“It’s bonkers that a defence secretary would involve his wife in his sensitive official duties, including sharing details of an impending military operation, and face zero consequences,” said Hegseth’s former spokesman John Ullyot to . This is “not normal”, said Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware.

But wait – it’s all part of the plan, at least as far as the first couple of the Pentagon are concerned. The Hegseths didn’t just find any old religion when they ditched their spouses for their workplace crushes. They signed up for a religious movement led by Doug Wilson and headquartered in Moscow, Idaho, with a network of affiliated churches across the country.

Wilson, who cofounded the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, is the kind of archconservative Christian nationalist who sounds extreme to most other Christians. He thinks that repealing women’s right to vote is “a good idea” and that wives should take a subordinate role within marriage. He is a defender of slavery. He wants to criminalise same-sex intimacy and outlaw gay marriage. He wants to replace America’s secular democracy with a Christian constitution that turns power over to “Bible-believing” reactionaries. In other words, Wilson is just the kind of preacher that any sane or practical person would want to keep as far away from the Pentagon as possible. And yet Hegseth invited him there to preach to the staff.

To be fair, judging from media interviews, the Hegseths appear to practise what they preach – at least on the home front. At their 77-acre Tennessee farm outside Nashville or in the 20-room, white-columned colonial revival house where they live while in Washington DC, Jennifer home-schools the children. For the curriculum, she has chosen Classical Conversations.

From this, and their attendance at Wilson’s churches, we may perhaps infer that the former executive producer at a major TV network accepts the dogma that a man is the leader of his family, while a woman is to be the smiling helpmeet. At the very least, she must believe that the third wife should submit to the second husband. Except of course when he is submitting to her advice on departmental hires, midnight air raids and other such matters.

The Secretary of War has reportedly discussed with his inner circle the idea of throwing his hat into the Republican presidential candidacy pool for 2028. So far, the idea is speculative (he has denied it). But should he do so, Jennifer would most probably take an active role. What her husband seems to lack in substance, Jennifer Hegseth certainly aims to have in strategic direction.

It would be funnier if this reckless duo didn’t also happen to sit astride the most powerful military force in the world. But here we are. Remind me, how did we get here?

There is something instructive in the story of the Hegseths, something that transcends the customary tawdriness of political scandal and reveals a fundamental truth about authoritarian movements of all stripes. Whatever their personal failings, according to their fanbase, autocrats are the leaders who make the trains run on time.

Except that they don’t. In fact, authoritarian leaders tend to pack the trains with buffoons. Corruption, incompetence and absurdity are not side effects. They are the essence of it. Maga is a political pathology that rewards slavish loyalty and punishes competence, integrity and truth-telling. It believes in the show, not in substance. A show where the right kind of swirl in your hair matters far more than any schoolchildren that your errant bombs might kill. And a great show is exactly what former Fox News couple the Hegseths have been delivering.