Does the blow-by-blow live coverage of courtroom incompetence, senior sex abuse victim-shaming, and insult muttering from the Republican’s top presidential candidate have you despairing?
Consider the plight of poor “Thundermike.”
Well, mostly he’s Mike.
Mike is the anonymous hero of Washington Post writer Alexandra Petri’s fictional — but highly probable — take on life as a juror in former President Donald Trump’s civil defamation trial — the members of which have been told to use pseudonyms and keep their daily chore top secret, even from their families.
“Mike reporting for duty,” the hero tells fellow jurors Thunderbolt, Striker and Kim as they gather at a top secret pick-up spot to be transported to the trial.
"Mike feels regret, Petri explains. He didn’t know “Thunderbolt or Striker would be options.”
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The surreal adventures of Thunderbolt, Striker, sometimes Thundermike and Kim are set in the very real world of the Southern District of New York courtroom where Judge Lewis Kaplan gave the very strict instructions to jurors overseeing E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case.
To protect the jurors’ safety, Kaplan arranged for jurors to give their fellow jurors fake names and not to tell anyone why they’ve stopped going to work.
In Petri’s imagination, both pose problems for poor Mike.
“'Where do you go every day?' Mike’s wife asks him on Day Two.
“'I just go to hang out with Thunderbolt, Kim and Striker,' Mike explains.
“'I think you should go to work instead,' she replies. Mike’s boss agrees.
“'You’re fired,' says poor Mike’s boss."
Mike tries to explain he’s doing something important for his country, but there’s only one answer he can give to direct questions: a shrug mysterious in nature.
No spoilers, but Mike and his gang experience love, name changes, suitcases full of cash, regret, Oscar-contender movie nights and people who refer to themselves in the third person.
“Thunderbolt thinks we’re learning the most important things we can know about another person,” says Thunderbolt. “How that person rules in a defamation trial of former president Donald Trump.”
In Petri’s fictional world, the answer is never made plain.
But what she makes abundantly clear is that while the former president may feel himself victimized by a political witch hunt in a weaponized justice system, his woes have got nothing on poor Mike’s.
“The defamation trial of Donald Trump is over and, unrelatedly, I am now back at work and have no more conflicts,” Mike tries to tell his boss. “Great,” the boss replies. “You are still fired.”
Read Petri's complete masterpiece here.
