As usually occurs when the nation faces the peril of military adventure, I received a message last week from my consultant in such matters, retired ex-General Mushmeal Fishmouth. The general has been living off the grid since before there even was a grid, so I was not surprised to find his cryptic missive tucked inside a Family Dollar circular in my mailbox. “Conditions go for sortie,” it read. “Rendezvous at Sector Foxtrot 1500 hours.”
Promptly at 3 p.m., I found myself in East Lake, outside a nondescript bungalow surrounded by hydrangeas and razor wire. A weathered cardboard sign warned, “BEWARE OF MIND FIELD.” I opened a wrought iron gate and walked up the path to the front porch, noticing en route a garden gnome apparently wearing camo.
Before I could knock on the door, it swung open and a desiccated finger beckoned me in. “Good man,” croaked a familiar baritone voice as I was pulled briskly out of the foyer and down a dark flight of steps.
I thought I might be in a basement, but when the lights came on, I realized I was actually in what seemed to be a state-of-the-pixel military command center. Plasma screens covered the walls and banks of hard drives were arrayed around the room. The general, clad in microfiber ninja attire, motioned me toward one of the only two chairs in the room. As I sat, I saw that it bore an Office Depot price sticker.
“Well, I guess I’m wondering why you asked me here,” he said, and before I could respond, he held up his hand. “Even in a time of national calamity, there is time for heartening levity.” He tried to chuckle, but the sound emerging from his gullet more resembled a goose with gas.
“Good one, sir,” I said. “This is quite the setup you have down here. Does it have something to do with the national calamity you mentioned?”
“Only everything. Great Patton’s ghost, son! Ain’t you heard that we’re at war?”
“Which one? Are you talking about the new war in Israel, the recycled war in Iraq, or the old war in Afghanistan?”
“The war on white people! I got word last week from a confidential but highly placed congressional source.”
“You mean Mo Brooks from the Alabama Fifth District?”
The general looked doleful. “That’s somewhat less confidential than I’d been led to believe. Anyway,” he said, brightening a bit, “it’s all true. The Democrats have fired the first salvo in the war on whites.”
“Just like they did at Fort Sumter?”
“Yes. What? No. What’re you talking about? There weren’t any Democrats in the Confederate Army.”
“I think there were pretty much nothing but.”
“Is that the kind of nonsense you learned in government school? See, what the congressman’s saying is that the Democrats are dividing the country on racial terms by making it sound like white people hate everybody else.”
“Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi.”
“Yeah! You get it.”
“Those are all Democrats.”
“Right!”
“They’re all white folks. Why would they want to make it sound like they hate everybody else?”
“To make the real white people look bad.”
“And by that you mean—”
“That’s right: the Republican Party. Keepin’ it real since 1860. But this is a war on many fronts.”
“It is?”
“Yes. Now the Democrats want to take their attacks underground.”
“Like Hamas? Digging tunnels into Salt Lake City?”
“No, I’m talking about the war on coal! That’s just another way to give white people the shaft.”
“The mine shaft?”
“Laugh it up. I just thank God for people like that Public Service Commission lady, Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh, who had the courage to stand up and tell the world that Barack Obama is trying to kill coal-mining jobs in Alabama.”
“She was making a speech at the Alabama Coal Association. How courageous did she have to be to say that? It might have been more interesting if she had mentioned why there might be less need for coal miners in the future.”
“EPA rules and regulations?”
“Alabama Power. They’re the biggest buyer of coal around here, for their power generation plants, but their CEO said the other week that because natural gas prices are so low, they’re gonna start using more of that to turn their turbines in years to come.”
The general rubbed his chin. “So this man is a Communist.”
“Capitalist, last I checked.”
“But he is clearly godless. Did he not hear Chip Beeker, a PSC commissioner elect, at that very come-to-Jesus meeting with Twinkle, say that coal was created in Alabama by God?”
“I think natural gas was, too. And I’m reasonably certain that God had something to do with creating wind and the sun, if you’re looking for sanctified energy sources.”
“But you’re missing the big picture. Look at this strategically. The Republicans enlist God on their side in the war on coal and that means the Democrats fighting the war on white people will wind up attacking God Himself. And if you’ve read up on Biblical warfare in Revelation, I think you’ll see that’s not going to work out well for the Dems.”
Some of the electrical circuits in the bunker smelled as though they were overheating. I started easing toward the exit. “I like your unified field theory, General,” I said. “There’s just one thing wrong with your premise. Last week Mo Brooks got a call from the GOP home office and got lambasted for saying there was a ‘war on white people.’ The chairman of the Republican National Committee himself said it was a pretty idiotic thing to say.”
General Fishmouth stood still for a moment. Then he started grinning and his bushy eyebrows fairly bristled. “Then we better hunker down for real,” he fairly shouted. “Get ready for the ultimate test of American democracy — the war on the war on white people!”