Dwain Northey (Gen X)

In this administration’s ongoing attempt to turn governance into a live-action board game night, our fictional Secretary of War-in-His-Own-Head, Pete Hegseth, has fully embraced the fantasy that running the Pentagon is basically playing adult Battleship—except instead of plastic pegs and a folding blue grid, he’s working with actual vessels, actual coordinates, and, inconveniently for everyone else, actual human beings.

From the outside, it certainly looks like he’s hunched over a giant game board in the Situation Room, gleefully calling out, “B6!” while some poor staffer whispers, “Sir… that’s an actual boat full of actual people.” But why let reality spoil the dramatic tension? In our satirical universe, every day is game night, and Hegseth is determined to win—even if it means enthusiastically sinking things that international law, diplomacy, and basic decency would prefer he leave afloat.

And as if real-world Battleship wasn’t enough entertainment, he’s also taken up a side quest: accusing Senator and astronaut Mark Kelly of treason for—how dare he—reciting the standard military oath. You know, the one that literally instructs service members not to obey unlawful orders. In this parody, Hegseth reacts as though Kelly just leapt across the table, flipped over the game board, and shouted, “YOU’RE CHEATING!”

You’d think someone so devoted to militaristic theatrics might have skimmed the UCMJ at least once, but here in satire-land, the man treats lawful process like it’s the “instruction manual” nobody reads when they open a new board game. Why bother with rules when you can just declare yourself the winner?

The administration’s whole approach feels like they wandered into the Pentagon thinking it was a combination arcade and escape room: push a few buttons, sink a few ships, accuse a few astronauts of treason, and wait for a high score to flash. The only problem—other than the obvious—is that this isn’t a game, and losing doesn’t mean resetting the board. It means destabilizing regions, violating norms, and turning American institutions into collateral damage for someone’s fantasy of being a wartime action figure.

But hey, in this fictional farce, at least Hegseth is consistent: whether it’s war powers or the oath of enlistment, everything gets treated like a rulebook he can throw across the room when it stops him from “winning.”

If only geopolitics came with the same safety warning as children’s games:

“Not intended for use by individuals who take themselves too seriously. Contains small parts. Choking hazard.”