The real problem with today’s dystopian science fiction?
It is overtaking reality.
Take Portland, where the Boomer Mammatifa is taking to the streets in rainbow unicorn costumes. But that’s just another Tuesday. The serious protesting is taking place at ICE headquarters, or 0.005% of the 145 square-mile city. It’s questionable whether even that slice of real estate would be erupting if Donald Trump had not given Portland something to rail against.
Pat Beall is an editorial writer and columnist for the Sun Sentinel, focusing mainly on Palm Beach County issues.
That makes it a near-perfect plotline of “Andor,” the critically lauded Star Wars sci-fi TV series: Trump badly needs someone to do the wrong thing at the wrong time.
This president knows a thing or two about the art of inciting riots, and he only needs a few to justify a future he is writing, the one that starts with arrests and the designation of the Democratic Party as a terrorist organization and ends with his permanent installment as Big Beautiful Ballroom Boy.
Just as in “Andor,” though, citizens have for the most part been unwilling to supply the appropriately vicious photo ops.
(True, Portlandians may be withholding honey. In a city of beekeepers, this is the equivalent of a glove slap and duel at dawn. Nothing lethal: Just pistols popping out tiny flags, with brunch menus.)
Sans violence, Trump has resorted to sending in gunpowder and fuses everywhere: Masked ICE agents willing to kick old men to the ground (Los Angeles) and force zip-tied children onto the street (Chicago).
On Fox News, this is called resisting arrest. In Germany, it was lighting the match on the Reichstag fire. On “Andor,” it was Season 2, Episode 1.
There’s even an “Andor” version of Kristi Noem, contender for the Best Dressed Worst Department of Homeland Security Secretary Ever. But you wouldn’t catch “Andor” villainess Dedra Meero weeping and moaning and rending garments if denied access to a bathroom stall. Points for that.
Still, both made sure troops would march into a peaceful city under the guise of quelling a nonexistent civil disturbance, thus ensuring there would eventually be one.
There’s also a gritty blue-collar city that feels a lot like Chicago. There’s tough leader there who looks a little like everyone’s favorite Illinois love-handled governor, JB Pritzker.
Regime resisters are swept up on bogus charges and convicted of nothing much, then fall off the radar and into remote prisons surrounded by water, to make sure they don’t escape.
“Andor,” Season 1, Episode 10.
Or: Alligator Alcatraz, United States District Court Case No. 1:25-cv-23182, C.M. v. Kristi Noem.
Inevitably, Star Wars’ Emperor gets his city massacre, and the dictatorial powers that follow. Quislings hammer home crime and safety talking points to mainstream media. And people believe them, because journalists are trusted, respected and provided with endless cups of freshly ground Columbian coffee by grateful corporate media owners. (I can dabble in fantasy, too.)
Coiffed TV hosts harp endlessly. Why must ungrateful citizenry refuse to accept the bounty of the Emperor? There are no legitimate critics, only persecutors, all consumed by Emperor Derangement Syndrome.
“Andor,” Season 2, Episode 8.
Also: Fox News, Monday through Sunday.
The heroes in “Andor,” just like real ones, are flawed and frightened. They bicker with each other. And truth, as always, quickly becomes the most dangerous thing in the world.
Better dressed than she ever was in Star Wars movies and with a closet that Kristi Cosplay would die for, congresswoman-equivalent in “Andor,” Mon Mothma, says the scary bits out loud.
“The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil,” she tells her jelly-spined colleagues. “When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.”
Then she runs.
She has to. The loudest monster arrests his political enemies.
For the fantasy, five stars. But I’m not ready to rate the reality — not just yet. I’ll wait for the sequel.
Pat Beall is a Sun Sentinel columnist and editorial writer. Contact her at beall.news@gmail.com.
