Jack Tulloss: Horse sense

Glenn Carstens-Peters/StockSnap

Published: 02-18-2025 1:09 PM

‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts!” Thus spaketh the Trojan priest, Laocoön, upon observing an enormous wooden horse left at the gates of Troy as a peace offering by the city’s mortal enemies. Disregarding the soothsayer’s wariness and in a triumph of optimism over experience, the Trojan leaders ordered the gates opened and had the exotic gift wheeled into the city.

By the time the citizens realized that the horse’s hidden compartment held battle-hardened Greek warriors, the Bronze Age’s greatest hornswoggle was a faitaccompli.

But is the legend of the Trojan Horse fact or fiction? According to Galadriel, Lady of Lórien, given enough time, things that should not be forgotten will be lost; history becomes legend, and legend becomes myth. While classicists agree that the Trojan War is a reality, 3,000 years later, the certainty of the ligneous equine remains unclear. Regardless of the story’s authenticity, it serves as a grand cautionary tale filled with fantastic imagery, rich with human strengths and weaknesses intertwining.

Now, those of a certain age know that a horse is a horse, of course, of course. However, a Trojan Horse can be a horse of a different color. For instance, consider the current administration — make that syndicate — in Washington, D.C. It’s a Trojan Horse in drag, but a Trojan Horse, nonetheless, pressed up against democracy’s gates.

Unlike the ancient steed that unleashed warriors, the latest Trojan Horse, now stabled at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., only dispenses manure in the form of malodorous ineptitude. And the servile shapeshifting stable hands aiding and abetting their pale horse are but venal manure spreaders, biding their time until their inevitable induction into the Scoundrel Hall of Fame.

Once upon a time, a sawed-off, mustachioed, messianic maniac proclaimed during his rise to power, “Give me five years, and you won’t recognize Germany.” Make no mistake: The totalitarian contagion that infected pre-WWII Germany is enjoying a resurgence in Washington, D.C., hosted by homegrown maniacs. Achtung, meineMitbürger! Our long-taken-for-granted democracy is in deep, deep doo-doo.

Footnote: Apologies to any livestock that might be offended by comparing their beneficial post-digestive, pasture-centered products to those of the White House variant.

Jack Tulloss

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