Pillow Fight

A recent houseguest left behind a pillow. A MyPillow. That is, a pillow from MyPillow, Inc., with its founder and CEO, Mike Lindell, the Trump-backing conspiracy theorist who spoke in fervently messianic terms at the January 6th, 2021, Washington DC rally, which, directly afterwards, spiraled into an attempted coup.

Initially, with a dark blue pillowcase covering the pillow, I had no idea it was a MyPillow. And trying it out, I was stunned by how comfortable it was. I texted my guest, commenting on it: “… it’s really comfy!” Then, “It’s the bomb.”

In comparison, my own pillow is a tired fluff rectangle of uncertain manufacture, bought at a department store years ago. Now fully spent, its softness is comparable to a piece of slate with a sprinkle of marshmallows on top. Not feeling particularly well at the time, I decided to try out my newfound friend for a much-needed nap. After this nap, I lauded the pillow yet again, texting my guest: “I’m not sure I’ll be able to give it back!” Meanwhile, an earlier response I got showed genuine pillow loyalty: “Love my pillow. It is a comfy one.”  

Later, when the bomb finally dropped—informed that it was a MyPillow—I felt like I’d been walloped in the back of the head during a pillow fight. “What!” I exclaimed. “From that MyPillow guy?”

“Yes!!!”

“He’s a nut job.”

“So what,” she answered. “He put [out] a good product. I love it.”

In the interest of dispassionate research, it seemed prudent that I first “study” the seemingly innocent pillow with a full night’s sleep. I needed to answer a couple basic questions: Was it a good product? Did it match Lindell’s advertisements as “The Most Comfortable Pillow You’ll Ever Own”?

One night’s test-run didn’t necessarily clinch the case but, I had to admit, come morning the MyPillow pillow proved itself no ordinary pillow. It was comfy! However, my test results were skewed a bit by the fact that I’d set it atop my worn-out slate piece.

The Offending Pillow

As to January 6th, with its speaker cast of Looney Tune characters like Lindell and John Eastman, though not Trump—he technically an A.A. Milne bear of little brain—the day’s most important outcome was how it highlighted America’s inexorable decline. With our nation’s then-as-yet-unwrapped Attorney General, the bookish Merrick Garland, whom Biden had picked more out of spite towards Mitch McConnell, the wily Republican Senate leader who’d blocked Garland’s Supreme Court nomination in 2016, than for any Garland credential as a law enforcement lion-in-the-bush, it’s now become even more evident after two full years with not a single January 6th key conspirator being charged with a crime—no doubt Garland would much rather be tapping a Supreme Court gavel than swinging a Justice Department cudgel—that undelivered justice is really just another symptom of America’s growing malaise. While our fawning leaders fret over nip-and-tuck tax cuts and who can go pee where, the nation’s democratic core is being diligently undermined by a self-seeking tribe of radicals who go around masquerading themselves as “freedom-loving” patriots. Frankly, if America had any soul left, as American jurisprudence is more akin to ancient Rome than English Puritanism, all from this ilk would’ve already been hurled from the Tarpeian Rock.

Considering the sheepish Garland and his decision to appoint a special counsel to re-filter the Trump file, as if a solitary pebble in the soup justifies throwing out the whole pot, there’s no reason to doubt that Trump will some day pass away quite peacefully in his own bed, surrounded by his loving family, at whichever luxurious mansion he chooses, with a surprisingly comfy Mike Lindell MyPillow pillow under his head. Much to the chagrin of the liberal tweeter do-nothings (as if tweeting does something), there won’t ever be any real consequences for Trump despite their pent-up desires for gotcha jail time. And while there might eventually be consequences for a handful of his closest minions, surely those consequences will prove no more than a tap—not even a slap—on the wrist. We’ve already seen this in spades with Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s hare-brained lawyer. Since January 6th he hasn’t gone a day without being able to walk around freely to wherever he chooses; meanwhile, the cops wasted no time putting the smackdown on a grocery clerk who’d merely slapped Giuliani on the back inside a supermarket.

As for me and a left-behind pillow, I’ve decided to regrettably set it aside in waiting at home as a sort of protest. But not as a protest against my houseguest. Nor strictly as a protest against Lindell. Rather, more as a protest against America’s hobbling and increasingly irrelevant justice system.