He may be President-elect Donald J. Trump’s most “unconventional” cabinet nominee (in the words of Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee), but when Pete Hegseth took his seat in room G50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building for his confirmation hearing as Secretary of Defense, he looked like a spit-polished officer in the Trump army.
Mr. Hegseth, who entered to the sort of applause and chants of “U.S.A., U.S.A.” normally reserved for celebrities, wasn’t wearing the National Guard uniform or the dusty boots of his own military service, which he referred to more than once during his testimony (in case anyone was wondering how fluent he was in the shared language of costume), but he was wearing a de facto uniform of the new administration. One just adjacent to the classic Washington uniform and clearly calibrated for what Mr. Hegseth called, in his testimony, “the most important deployment of my life.”
To be specific, he was wearing the now-signature Trump uniform: the bright blue suit, pristine white shirt with spread collar and perfectly knotted red tie, this time with subtle navy stripes, that acts as a Pavlovian allusion to the American flag. The uniform that has been adopted by Trump acolytes like Vice President-elect JD Vance. The one that is a sign of allegiance not only to the country but to Mr. Trump himself.
In case anyone didn’t get the picture, Mr. Hegseth added an Old Glory print pocket square — one he also favored during many of his previous visits to Capitol Hill — in matching red, white and blue. Not to mention some star-spangled socks and a flag belt buckle.
His only jewelry was a wedding ring (his wife, Jennifer Rauchet, was seated directly behind him), a lapel pin representing the crest of the 187th Infantry Regiment, and a Killed in Action bracelet worn in honor of a soldier, Jorge M. Oliveira, who lost his life in Afghanistan — a series of accessories that served as a form of value signaling.
His hair was gelled back without a strand out of place. During the occasional interruptions from the crowd, his jaw was heroically clenched.
Hidden were almost all of his tattoos: a large Jerusalem Cross, a “Join or Die” snake, and an American flag with a stripe replaced by an AR-15 among them, among others. Just a hint of ink reaching from his right forearm to his wrist peeked out from a carefully buttoned shirtsleeve. (It seemed to be the tail end of his “We the People” script.)
Left behind was the stars ‘n’ stripes cowboy hat. Unseen was the Uncle Sam jacket linings that Mr. Hegseth occasionally flashed in his role as a Fox News host — though contained, perhaps, under the neatly buttoned jacket. (Flashes of shirtsleeves suggested there may have been some red underneath.)
Certainly he did not look like the hard-drinking, adulterous, budget-mismanaging person that critics of his nomination had described. He looked clean-cut, not politically correct but patriotically correct. How could anyone doubt his love for his country or his standards? He was wearing them on his back.
And if his suit was a little more extreme than the usual Capitol or C.E.O. look — if it popped a little more through the screen than the navy suit, white shirt and red polka-dot tie worn by Senator Rick Scott of Florida or the navy suit, light blue shirt and patterned red tie worn by Senator Angus King of Maine or even the navy dress and matching jacket worn by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York — it was close enough.
Amid all the theatrics and speechifying by the many committee members and Mr. Hegseth himself, his uniform offered an argument of its own. One that had less to do with the details of leading one of the largest departments in the government than with his ability to play the part, in a show designed by the soon-to-be executive producer of the country.
