March 22, 2025
Yeah that’s right. The title is meant to warn you that this is a high concept post (or “experimental” if you prefer). I am arguing that the oft-mocked mullet hairstyle is a relevant symbol of America’s distorted, dualistic self-image. But before I can explain that I need to give a little context about what brought me to this unlikely but hopefully illuminating perspective.
Remember Mutual Assured Destruction?
I’ve been a peace activist since I was a kid in the 1980s and learned that my government’s official policy was something called the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction. I was so horrified that world leaders believed gambling our collective future on the knife edge of nuclear armageddon was a rational approach to global governance that it inspired me to spend my life advocating for system change.
In the subsequent four decades the U.S.’s persistent military aggression has unfortunately offered multiple opportunities to join many of my fellow Americans in stopping our country from waging war around the world. I was part of the massive resistance to the first Iraq War in 1991 and the even more massive resistance to the blatantly illegal second Iraq War in 2003. And I’ve done my best to support more other efforts to defang American imperialism than I can list here.
But now in the wake of an alcoholic, rapist, Christian fascist being elevated as Donald Trump’s latest Secretary of Defense I’m inspired to finally write down something I’ve been thinking about for over twenty years. How a uniquely American hair style is actually a pretty good metaphor for the invisibilized dynamics of U.S. empire.
It’s a classic American tale of self-mythologizing, contradiction and hyperviolence. A slice of a larger story bookended by two Secretaries of Defense, who on the surface are quite different but in their own way both embody the split personality of the American empire. Which is why I think of them both as a kind of national mullet, metaphorically speaking.
A Bipolar Empire Needs A Haircut To Embody Its Dichotomous Nature
Mullet you say? That’s right, arguably the most American of haircuts so let’s start there. Despite being proudly worn by a diverse range of people, (shout out to working class style and of course the many queer and lesbian folx who have artfully made the haircut their own) the mullet is a much defamed haircut.
To be clear I’m no mullet shamer. I am hair style agnostic and generally think if you can pull off a mullet, go for it. (Check out this great pro-mullet article.) However, I’ve always found the haircut’s dual nature, epitomized by the popular description of “business in the front, party in the back,” to be a rich metaphor for the bipolar nature of American state power.
The elephant in the room: the story the U.S. has about itself doesn’t match either the historical record or the geopolitical reality. We are taught in school that we are a country of ideals, a beacon of freedom that is celebrated around the world. This doesn’t square with the reality that we have used our unprecedented military might to create a global empire with over 750 military bases and troops in over 150 countries.
So if the U.S. empire had a haircut that was going to reflect this bipolar presentation then wouldn’t it be a mullet? America has a “business in front” orientation where we claim our foreign policy is about promoting democracy. But depending on which side of our imperial dichotomy a foreign country finds itself, this can quickly morph into bombardment and invasion, the proverbial “party in the back.” The mullet, that most American of haircuts expresses the imperial psychosis at the heart of U.S. politics. It would probably be best diagnosed as a dissociative identity disorder which is apparently the new name for multiple personality disorder.
Back to Secretary Rumsfeld and his Iraq photo-ops: Suit and boots
My strange attraction to this metaphor began over 20 years ago as an anti-war activist opposing the Bush administration’s illegal invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq. I was working with the media team of Direct Action to Stop the War and we were fighting soundbyte by soundbyte against the Pentagon disinformation machine. (Check out this article about DASW’s still very relevant 2003 uprising). The government was on it’s way to launching it’s “Mission Accomplished” narrative and was trying to convinced the American public the war was over including highlighting Bush era Defense Secretary (aka war criminal) Donald Rumsfeld visiting the troops. Amidst the larger propaganda narrative what always struck me was his clothing choices. Weird, you might think, but when it comes to information warfare details matter. Rumsfeld, who served as both the youngest Secretary of Defense under President Ford, and the oldest under George W. Bush clung to his aging whiz kid look by wearing the uniform of the technocrat: the business suit. But since he was in the middle of an active war zone he would swap out the dress shoes for combat boots.
Something about the dissonance of suit and boots popped for me, an unnoticed symbol, a little clue pointing to America’s imperial denial and for a fleeting media moment, exposing the contradictory mythology propping up U.S. empire. Generations of Cold War ideological indoctrination have tried to convince Americans that democracy and capitalism are fundamentally interconnected. However when we look beyond the propaganda it is obvious that it is actually war, not democracy, that is capitalism’s truest partner. The second Iraq war, orchestrated by oil men cosplaying as the U.S. government and paving the way for a corporate-led occupation, exposed the mechanics for all who wanted to see it.
Grappling with how to explain the contradictions of the bipolar mythologization, I was inspired by the mullet’s popular ethos of “business in front, party in the back.” I called it the imperial mullet.
Rumsfeld’s suit symbolizes the “Business” of how the military occupation made it safe for U.S. corporations to access Iraq’s massive and previously state-controlled oil fields. Meanwhile the combat boots invoke the grim “party” that had made it possible, the orgy of violence unleashed by the U.S. invasion and 8 year long military occupation. A military operation so devastating researchers can’t even figure out the actual number of people that were killed in the era, with most estimates falling upward of a half a million people.
Hegseth Has His Own Version Of Business In Front/Party In The Back
Now two decades later authoritarian conman Donald Trump comes to power, again. Ironically part of his appeal was to harness American resentment about the empire’s so-called “forever wars.” Turns out that a lot of Americans didn’t like being foot soldiers in imperial projects to control resources and maintain U.S. hegemony on behalf of corporate elites.
As part of Trump’s rise to power he nominated, and the Republican sycophants in the Senate approved, a new Secretary of Defense who embodies the MAGA right’s obsession with white Christian supremacy. His name is Pete Hegseth and his aesthetic choices offer us the latest expression of the imperial mullet metaphor.
But for Hegseth the contrast is not about the shoes or even the clothes. It’s what’s under the clothes. His short-lived but high profile career as a war crimes apologist and Fox News host profiles his TV friendly “business” front.
Good looking, well dressed, Aryan – just the way Fox News likes its on air presenters. The suit symbolizes his commitment to the “business” of ensuring the U.S. military will continue to do the bidding of Trump’s billionaire friends.
But get a few drinks in Hegseth and the next thing you know his version of “party in the back” will be staring you in the face. He has proudly covered his body in tattoos that communicate a terrifying worldview, even less subtle than Rummy’s combat boots. His version of “party” means unleashing hateful supremacy and racist violence backed by the Pentagon’s full firepower. Why yes, that is the Jerusalem Cross, symbol of the 12th Century European Crusader Kingdom based in Jerusalem. It is a common symbol among Christian fascists and right on brand for Pete’s book American Crusade.
And of course Hegseth sports other tattoos celebrating his violent mixture of Christian supremacy, white nationalism and guns. As this article in the Bulwark explains:
[One of his tattoos is] a sword embedded in a cross on Hegseth’s inner forearm—it represents Matthew 10:34, the verse wherein Christ says, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword”—and, most disturbing of all, a gothic inscription on his bicep: “Deus Vult”…Latin for “God wills it.” During the First Crusade, it was raised as a battle cry…It provides the last words in American Crusade: “See you on the battlefield. Together, with God’s help, we will save America. Deus vult!
Imagine What Could Be Possible If We Gave Up On The Empire?
Given that in Hegseth’s view the enemies of America are as much domestic as foreign, some might say the chickens have come home to roost. That a country which has inflicted so much violence on the world is now turning that violence inward on itself. I hope not, but I either way America is long overdue for a reckoning.
This country’s metaphoric mullet says as much about the American empire as any hairstyle choice does about the person who chooses it. The only difference is most Americans didn’t choose it. We get glimpses of the imperial reality when our loved ones come home in body bags, or bearing physical and psychological scars from their deployments. And whether we realize it or not, we constantly experience its long shadow in the artificial austerity created by our government’s choice to fund a global military empire rather than healthcare, education or things that actually help people.
In 2024 the US allocated $824 billion dollars on the military budget which is more money than the GDP of all but the 20 largest economies in the world. What did that unimaginably large amount of money buy us or anyone else? Record profits for military contractors, some relatively high paying jobs for the 1.4% of American workers employed in what is euphemistically called the Aerospace & Defense Industry, plus plenty of campaign contributions to keep the wheels of American politics well greased. And of course the product as promised: lots of industrial scale mass murder, mayhem and destruction, not to mention plenty of toxic waste and climate pollution.
America has always had a giant gap between our mythologized story of who we are as the “Land of the Free” and the reality of a country built on mass enslavement and genocide. Similarly we need to admit you can’t be a democracy and a global military empire at the same time.
Time for a haircut? Well here the metaphor gets a bit trite but we do need to at least collectively look in the mirror. If as a country, America were to actually see the reality, and then reject the unflattering imperial reflection that is shining back at us…imagine what is possible?
It may seem unlikely given the current trajectory of U.S. politics. But that’s pretty much how every major change worth making feels, often right up until happens. So whatever piece of the polycrisis you are spending your time addressing let’s reminder that America’s unacknowledged military empire is making it worse. Particularly now as we all work to defend what little U.S. democracy we have from rising MAGA fascism, let’s keep reminding our fellow Americans where their tax dollars are actually going.
Just think what the richest country the world has ever known could do to address some of the existential problems that threaten our civilization, if we were NOT using our so much of our resources to maintain a military occupation of the planet. That’s some business in the front that could create a real party in the back. A party we could ALL enjoy.