Supremacist ideology is irrational and always ends up as some weird and nonsensical mess. I remember researching Nazi ideology a while back and I couldn't believe the rubbish I was reading, I just came to the conclusion that some people are just devils and their entire existence is to watch the world burn. At the end of the day, Trump and co want to wrap up the Russian-Ukrainian war, leave Europe to take charge of their own security and marshal resources to focus on containing China. Trump has torn down America's soft power and wants to use hard power to enforce American primacy.
What I wonder is what they plan to do to "contain" China though. Is it provoking China and baiting them to react so they can create a pretext to go to war? Is it coercing their vassals to punish China economically through tariffs and trade embargoes? Is it all of the above? Whatever the case may be China better anticipate what's coming and stay ready.
Hegseth isn't unique in this at all. After 9/11 Erik Prince had Blackwater, the mercenary company, publish ads specifically targeting people who believed it was their literal Chrisian Duty to genocide the Iraqis for the sin of existing:
(
) - The Economist, 2009
This isn't that surprising if you dig a little deeper into America's overarching national myth of "land of the free". The most obvious is Thanksgiving, where the story is the Puritans, a sect of British Protestants, fled to the New World on the May Mayflower ship to escape persecution by the Church of England, and helped by the native Wampanoag tribe/nation to survive long term and found Plymouth colony.
All of this was real and did happen and Plymouth still exists. What they don't tell you is the Puritans were persecuted in England for murdering non-believers in open public. In the New World they harassed, robbed, and murdered Wampanoag the moment Plymouth stabilized, which radicalized the tribe against all colonists. Furthermore they wages harassment campaigns against neighboring colonies, all because they believed it was their Christian Duty to genocide anyone who wasn't a Puritan. And no, outsiders could not convert because all outsiders where agents of Satan.