Pete Hegseth’s Total War Against the Left

Mike Franklin · Aug 7, 2026
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth believes that Americans on the political left are not simply ideological opponents but cruel and violent authoritarians with whom he is locked in a total war.
Pete Hegseth
Make no mistake about it: the Left wants to destroy the one institution standing between them and total control-the United States military.
Hegseth, Pete. The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free (New York: Fox News Books, 2024), xix.
Pete Hegseth
[Y]ou're not going to do well in the Democrat primary if you don't believe that women should sacrifice babies for a job promotion.
Hegseth, Pete. American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free (New York: Center Street, 2020), 178.
Pete Hegseth
Not every left-leaning American is willing to rationalize violence yet, but this is where we are headed.
Hegseth, Pete, and David Goodwin. Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation (New York, NY: Broadside Books, 2022)
Pete Hegseth
[The modern progressive left] are the law, the police, the prosecutor, the judge, the jury, and executioner.
Hegseth, Pete. The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free (New York: Fox News Books, 2024), 4.
Pete Hegseth
The mission to liberate the minds of America’s future citizens is not a debate, an academic argument, or even a clash of worldviews. It is a battle. A war—a war over correct ideas.
Hegseth, Pete, and David Goodwin. Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation (New York, NY: Broadside Books, 2022)
Pete Hegseth
While the post-9/11 generation of patriots spent two decades fighting enemies abroad, we allowed America's domestic enemies at home to gobble up cultural, political, and spiritual territory.
Hegseth, Pete. The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free (New York: Fox News Books, 2024), 2.
Pete Hegseth
For the Left, that humiliating defeat strengthened their resolve to achieve their ultimate goal: erasing America's soul, culture, and institutions. We are the ones standing in their way—and have been targeted for annihilation.
Hegseth, Pete. American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free (New York: Center Street, 2020), 1.
Pete Hegseth
Our future existence as sons and daughters of freedom requires the satisfaction of a single paramount objective: the categorical defeat of the Left. America cannot, and will not, survive otherwise.
Hegseth, Pete. American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free (New York: Center Street, 2020), 1-2.
Pete Hegseth
Whether you like it or not, you are an "infidel" —an unbeliever— according to the false religion of leftism. You are marked for annihilation. Just like Islamism, you can submit now or later; or you can fight.
Hegseth, Pete. American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free (New York: Center Street, 2020), 289.
Pete Hegseth
But America is under siege by the scourge of leftism. Our situation is bad, very bad. We are in the fight of our lives for the soul of our country.
Hegseth, Pete. American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free (New York: Center Street, 2020), 61.
Pete Hegseth
Leftism + Anything = Destruction (and Dependency, Despair, and Death).
Hegseth, Pete. American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free (New York: Center Street, 2020), 67.
Pete Hegseth
This time in our history calls for an AMERICAN CRUSADE. Yes, a holy war for the righteous cause of human freedom.
Hegseth, Pete. American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free (New York: Center Street, 2020), 2.
Pete Hegseth
Like the Islamic terrorists that we fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, the [American left’s] project is not of their generation. It moves through generations of zealots and revolutionaries. This has been an objective of the American Left since the turn of the twentieth century. It is ongoing. It never stops. It's unrelenting.
Hegseth, Pete. The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free (New York: Fox News Books, 2024), 4.
Pete Hegseth
Until our crusader in chief, Donald Trump, showed up, our leaders were not seriously confronting the leftist invasion. Yes, voting is a weapon, but it's not enough. We cannot outsource or delegate our crusade. Arm yourself metaphorically, intellectually, and physically. This is, by the way, why the Second Amendment exists.
Hegseth, Pete. American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free (New York: Center Street, 2020), 293-4.
Pete Hegseth
[T]here is no time—or room-for an insurgency. The Left captured the military quickly, and we must reclaim it at a faster pace. We must wage a frontal assault. A swift counterattack, in broad daylight. If we wait for nightfall, they will regroup.
Hegseth, Pete. The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free (New York: Fox News Books, 2024), 5.
Pete Hegseth
[The] Cultural Marxist Paideia is now based in pseudo-virtues that do not include Christian tolerance. They now want to control what you believe and think. Jeering, roving bands of “protesters” today demand that diners at a restaurant or on the street “say the words” or “hold up their fist.”
Hegseth, Pete, and David Goodwin. Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation (New York, NY: Broadside Books, 2022)
Pete Hegseth
Untethered from the Bible, the Left attempts to knock down the gates of Paradise through blood sacrifices of unborn babies-from late-term to full-term to postterm abortion-in unholy self-worship. They literally believe that this can usher in a perfectible kind of people to populate their institutions on Earth, thus creating a society in which no harm is ever done. Kill babies to save people.
Hegseth, Pete. American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free (New York: Center Street, 2020), 73-4.
Pete Hegseth
What we eventually discovered is that just like an enemy at war, the radical Left never stops moving and planning. They do not respect cease-fires, do not abide by the rules of warfare, and do not respect anything except total defeat of their enemy—and then total control. They consistently attack without regard for reciprocity or fairness. They are willing to fight by any means necessary, which includes destroying the very Constitution that cloaks their treason.
Hegseth, Pete. The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free (New York: Fox News Books, 2024), 3.
Pete Hegseth
It is motivating to picture what the future could look like, but right now, we are in a firefight. We are pinned down, caught in an enemy near ambush. The enemy has the high ground and is shooting from concealed and fortified positions. We are on the “X,” in the kill zone. Our families, our kids, our country, and our faith are in the crosshairs. We can talk strategy all we want, but our reality right now is tactical. Hand-to-hand combat, face-to-face.
Hegseth, Pete, and David Goodwin. Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation (New York, NY: Broadside Books, 2022)
Pete Hegseth
Winning in 2020 is a must, and the country needs you.

Then, with four more years of President Trump in the White House, get even more proactive. If you don't own a gun, buy one.

Train to use it. And then buy more. If you're not in good physical condition, get off the couch and get into shape.
Hegseth, Pete. American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free (New York: Center Street, 2020), 308.
Pete Hegseth
Allow me to put our task into army infantry terms. For decades, the United States has been lured into a giant L-shaped near ambush-the most deadly kind, with almost no escape. In more ways than you can imagine, leftists have surrounded traditional American patriots on all sides, ready to close in for the kill: killing our founders, killing our flag, and killing capitalism. The only option for survival in a near ambush is to charge; to close with, and destroy, the enemy.
Hegseth, Pete. American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free (New York: Center Street, 2020), 24.
Pete Hegseth
As a former infantry platoon leader, the only thing I know you cannot do when you are in the kill zone is to hunker down and hope you survive. Inaction ensures death. You must act, even before you know where the enemy is or exactly what to do. Your only hope is to quickly find cover, and throw your grenades—fragmentation grenades to stun or kill the enemy, and smoke grenades to conceal your counterattack. In most cases, in a near ambush, there is no option for retreat—only to charge at the enemy. Statues are coming down. Books are being canceled. Our history is being erased. Vice has become virtue, and virtue has become vice. Our country is upside down, and the Marxists are looking to finish us off. That family back in North Carolina, the ones who got me started on this project, got out of the kill zone. They got me out of the kill zone. And now it’s time for you to do the same. Will you?
Hegseth, Pete, and David Goodwin. Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation (New York, NY: Broadside Books, 2022)
Thread by Mike Franklin.

Political obsessive. Guitar noodler. Father to two adorable miscreants. I doom scroll far too much for my own sanity. 

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