The Mouse That Roared, v2 (Trump version)

We are right to be disturbed that our current President says he will be sending the military into our own cities. It would be frightening and illegal. And the media on “our” side of the political divide is right to focus on this. Soon, he said, he would be sending 100 soldiers to Chicago.

Wait, did he say “100”?

A nasty mouse against the people

Chicago has 2.6 million people. It covers a large area, with many other towns in its metro area. What exactly are 100 soldiers going to accomplish?Friends, this is a photo op. This is a child showing up at our door wearing a scary costume.

This is bullshit.

Still, it’s serious

Now, I don’t mean to underestimate the terrible work being done by ICE, the threats to lives and livelihoods from Trump’s actions or from those of his minions. Those are quite real and need to be taken very seriously. The threats to public health from misinformation and disinformation, including from the Federal agencies that are supposed to inform and protect us, all of that is real and must be opposed in every way that we can.

But yet, it’s not

But 100 soldiers attacking Chicago? We don’t need an army. We just need comedians. Like the ones on social media showing national guardsmen joining bands in Portland (that one was Andy Borowitz).

The great Peter Sellers starred in a 1955 movie called “The Mouse That Roared”. In that film, a little European country called “the Duchy of Grand Fenwick” was about to have its economy destroyed by having its principal export sabotaged by a cheap American imitation. They get the “brilliant” idea that they can recover by declaring war on the U.S. – this was in the days after WW II when we were pouring aid into Germany and Japan, to build them up after their defeat to use them as a bulwark against the Soviet Union, so it made sense that the leaders of Grand Fenwick thought that to be a defeated enemy of the U.S. was to be on a path to prosperity. They declared war on the U.S., but our State Department folks just laughed. So, they sent a few men to the U.S. (NY in the film) to attack. They were told not to hurt anyone, just to invade and then surrender. Of course, being a comedy, the invaders accidentally kidnapped an important scientist and an advanced weapon, and Grand Fenwick won the war.

In the Real World

If 100 soldiers come to Chicago, they are unlikely to kidnap a scientist, or to accomplish anything else there. But they will generate footage to scare us. And in Trump’s version of this bizarre undertaking, he is not protecting anything – he is trying to scare us. Like so many law firms and universities and media companies, we are to be frightened into submission, into bowing down to the rest of it all. 

And it’s “the rest of it all” that really matters. The attacks on our health, the grift and corruption, the violence against the vulnerable, the increased financial burden on most of us, not to mention our loss of standing in the world.

People, don’t get distracted. It really is more about the price of eggs.

And the lies.