After beginning its life as one critic’s description of the disastrous 2003 remake of Texas Chain Saw Massacre Two, the term “dumpster fire” began, by 2010, to gain popularity in the sports world as a way of characterizing a totally disastrous performance by a team.
Building on the idea of a huge out-of-control trash conflagration that was all-but-impossible to put out and stank to the high heavens, “dumpster fire” continued to gain traction and familiarity, given its constant use, in the buildup to the 2015 presidential election, to define, in particular, the laughable candidacy of one Donald Trump. By 2018, it had been added to the Webster’s Dictionary to describe “an utterly calamitous or mismanaged situation or occurrence”.
Today it provides the best depiction, by far, of the current white house squatter’s upending of the modern history of the entire world. Greenland: “I ended eight wars (a spectacular lie) and waa waa waa didn’t get the Noble Peace Prize (sic) so I give up on peace and I’m now gonna play Alexander The Not So Great”. Venezuela: “Thanks for giving me your Noble (sic again) Prize, Maria, but I still don’t think your people love you like mine do me”. Endless ICE incursions into American cities: “Prosecute the Governor of the State for ‘interfering’ with federal agents, but, by all means, do not investigate the murder of Renee Good by an ICE agent.” You get it. Just add your own follow-up list.
He creates a pile of trash, happily sets it on fire and thrills as it burns. How one man, with the obsequious help of his toadies, has so demolished our standing in the world (and elevated China’s), in just one year, is mind boggling.
Where is the fire department, you ask? Unfortunately, for too long, we have assigned disaster response solely to a network of government agencies. Consequently, when our federal servants are much more engaged in arson than in fire suppression, we get totally flummoxed. Sadly, it falls to us to throw a wet blanket over him and his insane pyromania. And, I’m happy to report, the pushback is growing every day. The most effective way to pinch out that disastrous fire is to suck up all the oxygen in the room and suffocate him and his enablers. We’re making headway every day. Stick with it!
Uncivil War
We now know that Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota is activating the Minnesota National Guard in order to keep the peace in Minneapolis, aid local law enforcement and, most importantly, to protect the rights of Minnesotans to peacefully protest and exercise their First Amendment rights. But from whom are they protecting these gentle angry people? None other than the rogue ICE and HSI national military units under the command of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (quite unlovingly known as ICE).
It will, undoubtedly, be a major mess. As ICE and HSI and other unmarked and unbadged thugs chase, rough up and bully the crowd, will the National Guard push back, unarmed as they (currently) are? No agency seems likely to cede the power over the outcome to anyone else.
ICE agents are largely unqualified and untrained, which leaves the National Guard, given each member’s past military service, as the only group prepared to provide a rule-driven and restrained response to this tense situation.
I desperately want someone to stop ICE, even if this order might lead to a confrontation. (See dumpster fire, above). This is what it might take to uphold the rule of law, the Constitution, and the rules of police conduct. I continue to hope that the rational and independent responses of our nation’s Governors will bring some calm and resolution to the white house bully’s mess.
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