No doubt as to who the Big Bad Wolf is.
Notice, please, that the Big Bad Wolf has only two ways of getting what he wants. The first is that he huffs and he puffs and he blows things down.
Huffing and puffing works fine on the First Little Pig, who built his house from straw—and even on the Second Little Pig, who chose wood as his building material. But huffing and puffing has no effect on the Third Little Pig, who used bricks to build his house.
The Big Bad Wolf’s second and last technique is telling lies. We don’t know whether the lies would have worked on the first two pigs, because they succumbed to the huffing and puffing—and got eaten—even before the Wolf had to resort to mendacity.
As to the Third Little Pig, not only does he build a brick house—and thus survive all the huffing and puffing—but he also responds to the Wolf’s bullshit with effective counterstrategy. And, so, at the end of the day, it’s the Big Bad Wolf who gets eaten, not the Third Little Pig.
One might say that the Third Little Pig knows his Sunzi:
Know yourself.
Know the enemy.
Hundred battles.
No peril.
As I said, we know who the Big Bad Wolf stands for.
The First Little Pig stands for the Republican members of the House and Senate. They are afraid of their constituents. Many of them are unintelligent and gullible. The others, the ones who understand what’s going on, do not have the character and moral courage to do their jobs. As the poet said, the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
And so, the house made of straw stands for our first branch of government, the United States Congress.
The Second Little Pig and his house of wood stand for those parts of our institutions that are made of somewhat sterner stuff than the house of straw, but that still succumb to the huffing and puffing. Think of Jeff Bezos as the Second Little Pig and the Washington Post as the wooden house.
The Third Little Pig and his brick house stand for those of us who’re going to survive this shitstorm. We go into battle armed with skill, flexibility, and moral conviction. In the end, it will be the Big, Bad Wolf who winds up in the pot. Not us.
Facing MAGA 