The Pentagon's unusual new online hype man really wants you to know that the troops love Pete Hegseth
An unusual new Pentagon account is an online cheerleader for the defense secretary.
The DOD Rapid Response account on X and Facebook mirrors a similar White House account.
The account is run by a former right-wing podcaster who now works in communications at the defense department.
A new Pentagon account on X and Facebook has been hyping up Pete Hegseth with videos of jogs, handshakes, and football throws and taking shots at unfavorable media coverage like Signalgate.
The account, known as "DOD Rapid Response," has more than 155,000 followers on X and says it supports "the Mission Of @SecDef And Fighting Against Fake News!" It is managed by Graham Allen, a former conservative podcaster who is now the Defense Department's director of digital media.
Its initial tweet in late February featured a clip of Hegseth defending the abrupt firing of top military leaders with the caption: "Newsflash: The American people VOTED for radical change and TRANSPARENCY!! A shakeup at the DOD is WHAT THEY EXPECT!!"
Allen is a veteran of the Mississippi National Guard, where he served as an IT technician and a military truck operator. He deployed twice to Iraq during his military service, Army public affairs told BI.
Experts in civil-military relations and communications said the account's content — which features the frequent use of exclamation points, emojis, and capitalizations for emphasis — marks a noticeable departure from past DoD communications.
The account focuses heavily on the new secretary of defense, who maintains personal and official X accounts. It has amplified posts from other officials praising Hegseth's virtues, calling out mainstream media "hoaxes and lies," and refuting concerns about Hegseth and other top Trump officials using the unsecured Signal app to discuss pending military operations.
The account has lately been really pushing the message that servicemembers love the defense chief.
"SecDef is loved by our nation's warfighters," read an April 2 post that retweeted a Breitbart story saying Hegseth "earned respect" from special operations troops after working out with them.
One day earlier, the account posted a video clip of Hegseth tossing a football around with cheering midshipmen at the Naval Academy. "This is why he's America's @SecDef," the caption read. Another post from the trip said, "One thing is clear, the future of our nation's @USNavy and @USMC LOVES our @SecDef."
Since his confirmation, Hegseth has been visiting military bases, doling out handshakes to some of the 1.3 million active-duty troops he oversees. He is a veteran of the Army National Guard.
This is fairly common practice for Pentagon chiefs, though many troops in the rank and file privately grumble over the "dog-and-pony show" that comes with it. Visits can often require intensive cleaning and "beautification" efforts by troops, followed by hours of waiting to receive the VIPs in auditoriums or chow halls filled with troops usually required to attend by senior officers.
Beyond celebrating Hegseth and promoting an image for the new secretary of defense, the account is also focused on shielding him from criticism.
In the last week, it has called reports in the Daily Beast and Politico "fake news" and accused a reporter of being disconnected from reality. The account took a dig at CNN on March 27, saying that while the outlet has its anonymous sources, "@SecDef has the love of the Troops!!" An accompanying video clip showed Hegseth shaking hands with soldiers.
The account seems to mirror the language and approach of a "Rapid Response 47" X account focused on President Donald Trump.
This kind of social media account represents a shift from past defense secretaries and their public messaging, said Jason Dempsey, a senior fellow of the Center for a New American Security's Military, Veterans, and Society Program.
It's nothing new for Pentagon-run social media accounts to feature photos of officials glad-handing troops. But the accompanying messaging has historically been more focused on strategy, such as highlighting foreign relationships with other militaries or showcasing US troops in training events, Dempsey told BI.
Dempsey said it's historically unusual to focus so heavily on the defense secretary personally and convey troops' "love" for them.
"That's what you get when you change out your Secretary of Defense for an influencer," Dempsey said, saying that "it's government by influencers and TV personalities."
Before his nomination to be Trump's defense secretary, Hegseth was a Fox & Friends Weekend host.
Allen, who the Office of the Secretary of Defense said runs the DoD Rapid Response account, was previously a contributor for the conservative Turning Point USA movement and also ran the "Dear America" podcast. He made a play for a South Carolina congressional seat in 2021 but dropped out in early 2022.
He is a vocal and influential figure on social media; he has over 3 million followers on Facebook and another half a million followers on X. Allen did not respond to BI's requests for comment.
Renee Hobbs, a professor of communication studies at the University of Rhode Island, said that the posted videos of Hegseth among smiling and clapping troops and the captions about their love for him look a lot like propaganda. She told BI it's likely part of a broader strategy to build support from within the armed forces.
"The 'common man' strategy, with its 'he's one of us' themes, is a classic technique" in propaganda and American politics, she said. It's designed to evoke emotions and spur feelings of loyalty.
The way Hegseth dresses may be part of such an everyman strategy; he often dons a kind of "operator casual" look when he travels to meet the troops.
It's "basically tapping into perceived similarity," Hobbs said in a phone interview. "It's really effective because most of the time, we're not aware of that. We don't understand how that kind of persuasion is working on us, we just react to it."
"As a TV personality, these kinds of messages play to his strengths," she said, adding that "posting pictures of himself on social media every day is effective if he's aiming to communicate a message that the brass doesn't like him, but the troops do."
Hegseth has made having a grounded connection with the troops a key part of his image, especially amid questions about his qualifications; he was narrowly confirmed as a secretary of defense with a tie-breaker vote.
He has characterized himself as a "change agent" unlike his predecessors, senior leaders with more experience.
The defense secretary said in the past that he prefers engaging with the troops because "it's not that long ago that I was right there with them." He told reporters in February, "I probably connect more with those guys than I do with four-star generals."
Hegseth has faced mounting criticism since he became the secretary of defense, most recently for amateurish communications of sensitive military information via the Signal messaging app, which he said was "clean on OPSEC." Troops know such communications to be ill-advised due to the annual privacy and cyber training requirements they are required to complete.
To what extent the posted photo ops with the troops reflect genuine attitudes toward their civilian leader is unclear and arguably unimportant — Hegseth is the highest authority in the military chain of command save the president.
Read the original article on Business Insider
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