As armed, burly goons roam D.C.’s streets, besieged residents say “it’s the little things” that give them solace, which is why they’ve embraced as their new folk hero “The Sandwich Guy,” the pissed-off, pink-shirted, possibly drunk veteran and DOJ attorney who one recent night lost it, got in a goon’s face, yelled “Fuck you! You Fucking Fascists!” and heaved his sub at him. He was arrested and fired, but a grateful city has joined in his valiant subrising; per Bowie, “We can be gyros just for one day.”
These totalitarian days, the nation’s capitol is thronged with “an alphabet soup” of so many alleged law-enforcers – National Guard, Customs and Border, DHS, DEA, Capitol Police, US Marshals – many people feel “they walking the streets like there’s a war going on.” With ongoing risks to D.C.’s precarious local autonomy – a bogus DOJ probe into “fake” crime data, a GOP push to end home rule, their purported leader’s threat to take over and “run it really, really properly” (God knows what that means) – the tensions were evident Wednesday with a massive show of force outside Union Station, where regime hacks Hegseth, Vance and Miller came to survey their armed carnage, swagger about and hand burgers to a pointlessly deployed National Guard. Predictably – polls show over 80% of residents oppose the seizure – they were met by boos, jeers, “Free D.C!” and, for Vance, “Go fuck a couch, J.D.”
It got worse when they opened their fetid mouths. Vance smirked it’s good they were there in one of the most crime- free spots in D.C. because there are so many (gasp) “vagrants.” Repulsive, sing-songy white supremacist Stephen Goebbels Miller “erupted in a manic fascist rant,” babbling the thugs will finally let black people feel safe even though he doesn’t know any, and besides, “We are not going to let these crazy communists destroy a great American city.” “All these demonstrators, they’re just elderly white hippies, they’re not part of the city and never have been,” he snarled as the multi-hued-and-aged crowd booed. (Hegseth sneered.) “We’re gonna ignore these stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they’re over 90 years old.” Vile, hateful, clueless, entitled, agitprop assholes ‘R us. From we the people: Better a stupid white hippie than a Nazi loser any day.
Amidst so much rancor, hubris, racism and mindless flexing of military force, residents say, “People do want to fight back – just resisting and not being beat down by all the crap that’s going on.” Which is how “a sandwich became a symbol of resistance in a surreal time,” the people’s way to combat an autocrat’s illegal seizure of their city and a primal, if petty, “collective scream for everyone who loves D.C., “One Small Sub for Man…One Giant Gesture for Democracy.” Enter, possibly having imbibed a bit, Sean Charles Dunn, a 37-year-old veteran and trial attorney who on the night of Aug. 10 famously brought a sandwich to a gun fight when he confronted a pack of masked-and-kitted-up cops and border patrol guys “performing official duties” – aka standing aimlessly on 14th Street NW glowering at innocent passersby in a performative show of firepower for their mob boss leader.
A brief video of the encounter has gone viral. A fuller version shows Dunn first across the street, holding a wrapped hoagie, yelling to a guy filming, “See these fascists right here in our city?” Then he turns toward them, yelling, “Shame, shame, shame.” The guy laughs: “That’s the truth, you ain’t talking shit.” Later, Dunn strides purposefully toward the swarm of uniforms, stops in front of one, points in his face and yells, “Fuck you! You fucking fascists! Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!” Police say he “continued his conduct for several minutes” before crossing the street, coming back, “winding his arm back and forcefully throwing a sub-style sandwich” at the agent, “striking him in the chest.” All hell breaks loose. Up to 20 goons, with nothing else to do, give chase, handcuff and arrest him. He’s later released, then re-arrested in a hyped-up DOJ video, “Operation Make D.C. Safe Again.”
Dunn was charged with one felony count of “assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers (of) the United States,” a federal charge that carries up to ten years in prison. The dangerous perp, it turns out, is an attorney who worked as an international affairs specialist in the Justice Department’s criminal division. He’s also an Air Force veteran who served in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2011, with a stint in Kandahar. He earned over a dozen awards during his service, including the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Air Force Good Conduct Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Air Force Legacy Service Award and National Atlantic Treaty Organization Medal. After news of the foot-long fray, the Air Force Times couldn’t believe “this nonsense” (over) assault with a deli weapon,” noting Dunn’s lawyer “questioned whether this deli-quence meets the standard for a felony charge.”
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D.C residents were also up in arms and subs, gleefully insisting – hat tip to Gil Scott-Heron – “The Revolution Will Be Satirized.” New protest signs sprang up: “Don’t Fuck With DC Unless You Want This Foot-Long,” “Sandwiches Against Fascism: These Condiments Don’t Run,” “Totalitarian Italian,” “Don’t Bread On Me,” “Officer-Involved Hoagieing,” “Hero With A Hero.” They demanded the Smithsonian display the sub as “a national treasure” (until purged); urged Subway to redeem itself for a pedophile scandal with a 2-for-1 deal, “One to Eat and One to Throw”; suggested new “throwables – Choose Your Weapon” – like Operation Breadstick Thunder and BLT-47-Assault Sub. They had questions: “Was it a Club Sandwich?” “Assault with a deli weapon is a felony now?”, “Isn’t this baloney?” They had praise: “Now this is how you use your White Privilege for good.” And if called to serve on Dunn’s jury, “I will vote ‘Not Guilty.'”
There are sub-themed t-shirts: “Battle For D.C.” Also sub-themed D.C. flags that fortuitously replace the two former red horizontal bars, based on George Washington’s coat of arms, with, yes, subs. Lorraine Hu initially posted one on Reddit for “a moment of levity,” and was flooded with thousands of likes and requests. “I realize sub-sandwich art is a very specific cultural moment,” she laughs, but she is still frantically filling Etsy orders on flags, pins, tote-bags and a $20 “Tasty Symbol of the Resistance” t-shirt. Most noticeably, one as-yet-unnamed patriot, or more likely several, took to festooning much of D.C. with posters memorializing the subrising by riffing off a popular Banksy piece Flower Thrower that pictures a protester hurling, instead of a Molotov, a bouquet. For D.C., of course, the bouquet has been delectably replaced by – hold the mustard, bring on the fury – a sub.
Shockingly, regime officials are unamused by a newly rowdy populace rising to proclaim, as the late, great David Bowie exhorted, “We can be heroes (or gyros)/Just for one day.” One grim White House spokesperson decried posters “glorifying” violence against the blue, declaiming of Dunn, “This man assaulted a law enforcement officer” – widely deemed “a bit rich” coming from a White House that pardoned over 600 hooligans who viciously assaulted hundreds of cops in a Jan. 6 riot. FBI hack head Kash Patel bloviated like it was Bin Laden the FBI had “arrested this individual and he has been charged with a felony assault.” Fox loudmouth and new U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro (really) said of the perp who “forcefully threw a sub-style sandwich”, “If you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer (not, actually), we will come after you with the full weight of the law…This alleged assault is no joke.”
The worst of the worst, Pam Bondi, was the worst. Likewise stern, she decreed, “If you touch any law enforcement officer” – again, actually not; the sub did – “we will come after you.” Evidently unaware setting such a ludicrously low bar for assault could encourage protesters with nothing to lose to be more violent, she stonily announced Dunn had been “FIRED” from the righteous work of the DOJ and charged with one felony count for assault, with a court hearing in September. Okay: due process and all. Then she got as ridiculous and grandiose as her ridiculous, grandiose boss. Of the military-serving, DOJ-lawyering, and yes sandwich-hurling Dunn, she said, “This is an example of the Deep State we have been up against for seven months.” Sigh. Every petty, brutish, lawless, witless day, these cartoon villain prove, says one online sage, “We are not a serious country.”
Penguins join the Subrising Meme on BlueSky
This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.