Hanging out in Spy Central with ex-CIA agents, Marine Corps snipers, MAGA cigar aficionados, and a gay bar full of cops.
Editor’s note: This piece originally appeared on Randy Blythe’s Substack and is republished here with permission. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of RVA Magazine. Adam Dunigan and Amanda Nelson join Kate Powell tonight, October 29, for Salon de Résistance: The Midterm Algorithm at Black Iris Social Club. Doors at 6 p.m., conversation at 7 p.m. Free and open to the public.
Randy’s Note: I hammered out this piece back in July to pitch to magazines. It was never published, but that’s OK—I don’t think this story is over, not by a long shot. The midterms are happening November 3—that’s just five days from now, y’all. If you’re registered, go out and vote (if you haven’t already). Then, regardless of who takes control of Congress, we the people must begin holding our elected officials to account, both Democrat and Republican—we elected them to serve us, not foreign governments, corporations, or monied special interest groups. Business as usual has worked out great for high-dollar campaign donors for far too long, but business as usual hasn’t been working out so great for the rest of us lately, now has it?
Adam Dunigan’s one-bedroom Arlington, Virginia, apartment is furnished in what could only be described as “safe house spartan.” There’s a bed, two large-screen TVs, a desk with video gear and computer monitor, a small table with a makeshift green screen sheet hung behind it, a single-shot sparkling water maker on the kitchen counter, and a few coffee cups in the otherwise empty cupboard, one of which reads “I am a ray of fucking sunshine”—that’s about it. The refrigerator is bare, there’s no art on the walls, nothing of sentimental value on display anywhere in sight. Every item is utilitarian, down to the bottle of 3-in-1 soap in the shower. It’s a place one could leave in a hurry if, say, members of a foreign intelligence agency were on their way to kill you.
The decor, or lack thereof, makes sense—Dunigan spent the previous decade overseas working as an undercover operative for the CIA. Before that, five years in the Marine Corps, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan, another environment where speed and mobility often determine whether you go to work the next day or back home in a body bag.
Since I’ll be bunking here for a couple of nights, he’s thoughtfully purchased a small twin bed for the living room, even though I’ve repeatedly assured him I can sleep on the floor. Ah, Southern hospitality… but Arlington is only technically part of the South, and I’ve always been suspicious of, well, almost everyone in Northern Virginia. For good reason—it’s a fact that NoVa is spy central, spook city, and now here I am in one’s living room, eight miles away from CIA headquarters at Langley.
Here, just across the Potomac from the halls of power in D.C., is an ever-evolving web of dark knowledge involving dark deeds, stretching unseen across the well-maintained suburban sprawl. Dunigan, 38, a man trained in the arts of psychological manipulation, espionage, and quiet killing, has spent much of his adult life adding strands to that web. It’s nerve-wracking to contemplate, but I’m here with a purpose—I’m trying to help save America.
I throw my backpack and camera bag on the twin bed, text my girlfriend to let her know I’ve arrived safely, and turn to Adam.
“OK. Run me through the order of operations for tomorrow again,” I say.
“Right. I’m up at 0600—we’ll be out the door by 0730. First we hit the farmers market, then the business incubator thingy. Then we’ll head over the river for the speech at the Capitol and finish off with the town hall at the studio,” he says.
“Dude. What about the gay bar?”
“Shit! That’s right, I forgot—the LGBTQ law enforcement event at the gay bar. That’s after the Capitol, before the town hall. Freddie, the bar owner, is great—you’ll love him.”
“Copy. Sounds fun,” I say. “Hopefully they’ll have decent coffee at the farmers market.”
While farmers markets and gay bars aren’t the usual settings for cloak-and-dagger flicks, I’m sure they have their place in the history of espionage, especially here inside the Beltway. But unless this is the most ridiculously underfunded (not to mention utterly pointless) CIA psy-op ever, I won’t be doing any cool spy stuff anyway—Adam Dunigan is on the campaign trail.
Three years away from retirement, Dunigan “blew up his own life” (his words, not mine), quit the CIA, and cashed out his government 401(k) in order to run for Virginia’s Eighth Congressional District. Why? “I barely managed to white-knuckle through the idiocracy of Trump’s appointees and policies in his first term,” he says, “but under his second term, I saw even darker developments taking shape. It made me deeply angry, and doing nothing was never an option.”
I’ve come to Arlington to shadow Dunigan for a few days and pitch a profile piece to Rolling Stone or anyone else who will bite.
His main opponent in the upcoming August 4 primary, the eleven-year Democratic incumbent Don Beyer, is both respected and well liked in the Eighth. Beyer’s political career spans nineteen years, including eight as the lieutenant governor of Virginia. According to FEC filings, Beyer has raised $1,628,106.55 for his reelection campaign, $1.2 million of that from individual contributions and the rest from various PACs. Per OpenSecrets, his personal net worth sits somewhere around $125 million.
Dunigan has never run for political office of any sort, and aside from his CIA cohorts, was virtually unknown in Arlington until seven months ago. He has raised $144,676.68 in individual contributions, pledging to take zero dollars from corporate PACs or special interest groups. As a first-time congressional candidate, Adam is still a private citizen and isn’t required to file official financial disclosure reports until if and when he takes office, but he tells me he’s got $120,000 worth of equity in his 600-square-foot apartment—that’s about it for his bank account.
The odds are, to put it mildly, steeply uphill.
Like it or not, the American political apparatus is a duopoly—and as a registered independent voter, I definitely don’t like it. The Republican Party has been swallowed alive by a con man, convicted felon, and adjudicated sexual abuser. The Democratic Party has been gutless and completely ineffective at containing said orange maniac—how in the hell do you lose, twice, to someone like Donald Trump? It boggles the mind.
I am utterly disgusted with both parties, so I don’t have a partisan dog in this fight. The Eighth isn’t even my district. In fact, I’ve always felt like a foreigner in Northern Virginia, and furthermore, the CIA freaks me way the fuck out.
So why cover this underdog campaign, and on spec, no less? Because doing nothing has never been an option for me either, and after ten long, disastrous years under two different Grampacracies, I feel the need to do something other than write another heavy metal song about how screwed up everything is.
We, the American electorate, have gone completely insane—at least according to the definition of insanity quoted by members of twelve-step groups everywhere. Politically, we keep on doing the same things over and over while expecting different results. This moronic, self-defeating pattern repetition has delivered us not once, but twice, into the hothouse shit-show-on-acid that is a Donald Trump administration.
I was intrigued when a friend of mine sent me Dunigan’s campaign platform website—it’s different in tone from the standard milquetoast Democratic palaver, and I happen to agree with his eight campaign points. Furthermore, the explanations of those eight points are direct, confrontational, and aggressive, and God knows these are qualities the Dems could use a heaping dose of right about now.
Hunter S. Thompson, fueled by ungodly amounts of speed and an overwhelming hatred of Richard Milhous Nixon, moved to D.C. for an entire year to cover the Democratic presidential primaries for Rolling Stone during the 1972 campaign season. I’ve been sober for fifteen years, so the drugs are out, and I don’t have a magazine contract. But I do have a few days off and a bunch of frequent-flyer miles to burn—a quick trip north to investigate potential congressional new blood is the least I can do for my country.
Plus, I really, really want to see Trump’s algae Reflecting Pool science project. Hopefully, I won’t get arrested.
Tomorrow’s schedule is booked solid, and I’m already tired after multiple travel delays. Dunigan has had a full day, too, but it’s only 5 p.m. and this evening is the weekly campaign volunteer hangout/meet-and-greet. Tonight’s festivities will be going down at a rooftop bar in Old Town Alexandria, seven miles away. Adam doesn’t own a car, only a Suzuki 750, and as bad-ass-James-Bond-style as it would be to zip through the atrocious Northern Virginia traffic on a fast motorcycle, I’m terrified of those things, so a campaign volunteer named Lauren gives us a lift in her Tesla.
Dunigan is running as a progressive Democrat, and his campaign volunteers reflect that. Lauren is one of those unlucky environmentalists who bought her car before Elon Musk went completely insane. She worked for the EPA until she couldn’t take Trump-appointed administrator Lee Zeldin’s anti-environmental policies anymore. She holds a bachelor of science in chemistry, drives an EV, and is heavily tattooed with dyed red hair and large-gauge ear plugs.
Only the nose ring is missing, and she’d check every box on a Truth Social whiny libtard chick stereotype checklist… except that Lauren is pretty, has a dark sense of humor, her Army veteran husband was a full-time Black Hawk attack helicopter pilot, and she’s an Olympic weightlifting coach who was the USA Weightlifting Masters National Champion in 2023 and 2025. Her back squat PR is just shy of 300 pounds—the woman is a beast. She’s also got great taste in music—Bad Brains were on the stereo when she picked me up at Reagan National earlier.
The campaign volunteer I spend the most time with is Dunigan’s photographer/videographer, Ted. A proud Asian American, Ted was raised mostly in nearby affluent McLean. He’s a devoted father who spent two years in the Peace Corps, holds a master’s degree in global technology and development, and cares deeply about human rights—he even drives an EV like Lauren. He’d be another one the Fox News crowd would write off as just another soy boy libtard… except that there’s a Purple Heart on his license plate.
Like Harvard graduate Dunigan, Ted went to college on the GI Bill after serving as a Marine Corps sniper, including a 2004 combat tour of Iraq where he fought in the brutal Battle of Ramadi from its beginning. After the Marines, he spent ten years working for the government in counterterrorism.
“What exactly does that mean?” I ask.
“Uhhh… let’s just say it’s… counterterrorism,” he replies, and I know well enough to not push further.
Ted is lean and muscular, with a penchant for offensive T-shirts that say things like “And there goes my last flying fuck.” We get along immediately, bonding over things like tinnitus (mine from thirty years of being in a touring heavy metal band, his from mortar attacks and shooting high-caliber rifles in combat zones) and our mutual love of photography.
The rooftop of the Alexandria Bier Garden is packed with campaign volunteers and soccer fans watching the World Cup, and as the match between Scotland and Brazil blares from speakers, we photo-nerd out, discussing the many ways that becoming a photographer literally changes the way you look at the world.
“Yeah, dude, since I picked up a camera, I’m constantly framing things 24/7, looking for the best light, noticing cool shapes,” I say.
“Exactly, man! Same here. I first learned how to use a DSLR camera for recon purposes when I was in the Marines—photography really is so much like sniping, ya know? You’re looking for movement, noticing areas of high contrast, analyzing the difference between light and shade. You see something that sticks out, it starts to line up, and just at the right moment… blam!” he replies.
Welp, alrighty then.
I doubt that the legendary father of street photography, Henri Cartier-Bresson, ever blew anyone’s head off from a hundred yards, so this is probably not what he had in mind when formulating his famous “decisive moment” concept, but it makes total sense to me… well, at least in an intellectual, abstract, I’m-not-a-sniper-and-thank-God-I’ve-never-had-to-shoot-anyone kind of way.
During the three days I spend with Adam and Ted, they break each other’s balls incessantly, exactly like every single other group of vets I’ve ever been around. The humor is dark and rough-edged, but that’s to be expected—these men went to war, not Vacation Bible School. Even so, they don’t peacock around, telling war stories and bragging about their military service. It’s simply a bonding aspect of their identities; furthermore, several times Dunigan stresses that while yes, he went to Afghanistan and it wasn’t exactly fun, what he did and saw pales in comparison to Ted’s experience.
Their wartime past comes up from time to time in conversation, and the term PTSD gets mentioned periodically, but it’s always matter-of-factly, with zero self-pity involved. “Yeah, I don’t walk around wearing that stuff like a letterman jacket,” Adam says. “It’s lame,” Ted agrees.
The rooftop is loud with the excited Brazil fans constantly screaming the way that only excited Brazilians can, where everything sounds like either an ax murder in progress or the best party you’ve ever been to. It’s hard to understand what anyone more than six inches away from your ear is saying, so I give up hope of eavesdropping on any serious policy wonkery and settle into watching Dunigan work the room. He shakes the hands and meets the greets and overall does a good job of looking young and handsome and truly interested in whatever people are yelling into his ear.
Most don’t take up an excessive amount of time, until I notice him seated, huddled next to a woman for what must be at least half an hour. She’s gesturing passionately, and I figure they must be discussing a specific campaign policy point, maybe even the top of his platform list: #1: Restoring Accountability, although I’m betting it’s most likely #2: Building Affordability, or even #3: Increasing Access to Healthcare.
I love the idea of stopping congressional insider trading, instituting term limits and income caps for elected officials, overturning Citizens United, actually enforcing existing ethics rules for once, and kicking the billionaires and corporate lobbyists who are disastrously shaping public policy straight to the curb. These are absolutely necessary actions that must be taken if we are to claw our way out of the openly corrupt sewer we are currently marinating in. But let’s face it—people often vote according to their bank balance, and mofos are broke these days. As well, despite the fact that we live in the richest country on earth, the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in America is a medical crisis.
“What were her concerns?” I ask Adam when he finally comes up for air.
“Oh, man, I wish you had heard all that,” he sighs. “She’s a single-issue voter.”
“Oh boy—gun control? Abortion rights?” I say, listing the first two liberal hot-button topics that come to mind.
“Nah, the whales.”
“Ah, an environmentalist—taking care of the ocean is a big one for me, too.”
“No, dude, not the environment, not the ocean—the whales. Just the whales. That’s the only thing she cares about.”
As a surfer, I have had a pod of whales breach less than fifty yards from where I sat floating on my board in the Atlantic. It was an awe-inspiring experience, and it drives me insane that greed and stupidity have driven these magnificent creatures to the edge of extinction. I’m well aware that healthy oceans, which include the whales, are critical for the survival of the human race. Hopefully, campaign point #4: Protecting Education, Building Opportunity will help ensure that a new generation of environmental scientists and marine biologists can access the knowledge and resources they need to start restoring our oceans’ health. But in the midst of our democracy being dismantled by apocalypse-bunker-building oligarchs, whales’ rights seems like a strange nail to hang an identity politics shingle on right now—if we don’t get rid of these people, there won’t be any whales to worry about anyway.
“You know, my pretzel still hasn’t shown up yet,” Amanda Nelson says as Adam turns to talk to someone else. Amanda is an around-the-way girl, a fellow Richmonder (well, from the mean suburbs of Chesterfield, but I’ll let it slide) who’s an amateur historian, podcaster, and popular political content creator (oh, how I loathe the term “content creator”). She’s the brain behind Amanda’s Mild Takes, where she shares daily political analysis across various social media platforms. She’s cute, whip-smart, and, most importantly, really, really funny.
“Yo, you already said that an hour ago. Go tell the bartender you want your food,” I say.
“Nah, I don’t care really,” she says. “Well, I care enough to complain, but not enough to do anything about it—I’m a Democrat.”
Fucking hilarious, but considering how ineffectual the Dems have been as of late, a bit on the nose.
Scotland loses to Brazil 3–0, then as the game switches to Mexico vs. Czech Republic, a huge triangular shape blasts low over the roof of the bar—just your friendly neighborhood B-2 stealth bomber, cruising into town from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri for the upcoming Fourth of July celebrations. The machine is impressive, and it ought to be—each one costs around $2.1 billion to make, can carry up to sixteen civilization-ending gravity bombs of white-hot nuclear death, and costs between $135,000 and $200,000 per hour of flight time.
Everyone instinctively gasps and ooohs and aaahs out loud, myself included, which upon reflection is a really weird reaction to have after seeing one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse suddenly appear in the sky overhead—Oh, wow! Look, everybody—it’s a giant mechanical bat that could end all life on earth! Bad fuckin’ ass! And look how quick those tax dollars burn at 560 mph!
The evening stretches on until Adam calls it a little before midnight—it’s the longest I’ve hung out in a bar in over a decade. We catch a ride back to his place, and I’m in bed and asleep by 1:30 a.m.
Ted picks us up for the quick twenty-minute trip over to the Annandale Farmers Market in neighboring Fairfax County, and we’re on site by 8 a.m. At the entrance to the market are the two blue and red tents of the Fairfax Democrats and Republicans. Toting a backpack loaded with campaign handbills, Adam introduces himself to both as a candidate in the Eighth. Both tents are manned by senior citizens, both have male and female volunteers, both are quite cordial to us, and both are taking the piss out of each other in passive-aggressive ways, but I gotta give it to the Republicans—they are winning this contest, hands down.
The Democrats’ folding table is draped in a patriotic yet tastefully subdued red, white, and blue checkerboard cloth, upon which sit a single stack of candidate brochures, a small smattering of stickers, a tiny bundle of American and Virginia state flags, and a baseball cap with “Obama 2028” printed on it. The hat is the Democrats’ single low-key attempt at getting under the Republicans’ skin.
In contrast, the Fairfax Republicans’ banner is twice the size; their table is covered in a giant fuck-off “Trump: Make America Great Again” tablecloth, which in turn is crammed to overflowing with candidate brochures, free pocket copies of the U.S. Constitution, “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, and huge bumper stickers that read “GUNS SAVE LIVES—2.5 Million Defensive Uses Each Year.” The Democrats have a single modest sandwich board setup with two small-print pages explaining in excruciating detail the minutiae of mail-in ballot voting. The Republicans have large yard signs everywhere printed with aggro slogans like “FIGHT FOR AMERICA! TRUMP 2024” below the famous assassination-attempt photo, blood dripping down Donald’s face from his magic ear. Also “STOP! Raising Taxes,” “LAW AND ORDER MATTERS—Vote Republican!” and the truly baffling “Schools Need PARENTS—NOT PORN” (???).
The Republicans simply have bigger, better, bolder swag—and a lot more of it to boot. But that’s not why they are winning the war today at the Annandale Farmers Market battleground—it’s the stogies.
All three seventy/eighty-something-year-old men manning the Republican table are puffing relentlessly away on giant cigars, sending up massive clouds of smoke, which immediately drift downwind to envelop the irritated Dems gathered five feet away. “Ugh! It’s, cough cough, just awful!” one of the female Democrats gripes as she glares at the human smokestacks in the tent beside her. “And I, cough, know that they are, cough cough, doing it on purpose!”
This is a farmers market, not a Mafia-movie back-alley basement poker den; furthermore, who in the hell chain-smokes cigars at eight o’clock in the morning? Winners, that’s who. Of course they are doing it on purpose—and it’s working, I think. There is something positively cartoonish in the evil grin one of the MAGA men shoots our way as he overhears the woman complaining, his narrowed eyes glinting with victory as he watches her fan the smoke away from her pinched face. He chuckles, takes a huge drag on his stogie, and sends another fumigating cloud our way.
The cigars are a crude tactic, yes, but genius in their simplicity. And this is how they keep beating you, I think, looking to the upset woman. You showed weakness. You let them see your distress. They know you’re thrown off balance, all aflutter over a little smoke. There’s blood in the water, and now it’s time for the full-court Havana press. Game over. Although it’s a full-on dick move, and quite childish to boot, I must admit it’s pretty damn funny to witness.
It occurs to me that the cigars are a metaphor for Trump’s entire political strategy—his time in office has been one long, outrageous dick move after another. It’s the public relations equivalent of fart spray—anyone with a sense of propriety gets their panties in a twist and immediately runs out of the room in horror, frantically waving their arms and bitching about the smell. By the time the air is clear enough to think straight and return to the issue at hand, he’s done what he wanted while everyone was distracted and the room was empty. Trump’s supporters call it playing “5-D chess” (despite that there are, um, only four dimensions); I call it being a merciless prick—either way, it’s worked for him so far.
After a short chat with the Democrats, who cheerfully inform us that Dunigan is the first candidate they’ve ever had show up here (shoe leather pays!), we head into the market, and Adam strikes up a conversation with Steven, the Taiwanese American owner and operator of Uncle Ping’s Street Foods. I haven’t had breakfast yet and grow excited as I look over the menu—Oooh, dumplings! Braised pork shoulder and rice! Sadly, Steven only has refrigerated premade versions to heat up at home for sale today.
“Such a bummer you don’t have any hot food,” I say. “I always love eating at the night markets when I am in Taipei.”
“This is not a night market, and we are not in Taipei,” he says, squinting at me as if I am some sort of intellectual insect. “This is Northern Virginia, it’s nine o’clock in the morning, and nobody wants hot dumplings at this hour of the day. There are no night markets here, period. Bourdain tried to do one in New York. He’s dead.”
Mercifully, Dunigan butts in, and Steven goes on to tell us the story of how he started Uncle Ping’s. Growing up in the restaurant business as the son of immigrants, Steven’s childhood was spent in kitchens, not goofing off with the neighborhood kids. He speaks lovingly of the way his father gently taught him the importance of hard work through example. He toiled in various area restaurants until deciding to strike out on his own, honoring his family’s culinary legacy. It’s a child-of-immigrants success story in progress, which of course means that it’s an American success story in progress, the continual tale of chasing the American dream.
This would be a perfect time for Adam to plug campaign point #5: Supporting Immigrant Communities, and maybe he eventually does, but I need coffee, so Ted and I grab a dark roast nearby, leaving them to discuss the pain-in-the-ass process of obtaining a food handler’s license. I buy a small jar of Uncle Ping’s handmade non-GMO avocado chili crisp oil when we return, and we begin making our way out of the market.
Near the exit, a tall, wiry gentleman in his seventies sporting a neat goatee and a black eye patch appears, seemingly out of nowhere.
“Are you the candidate I’ve been hearing about this morning?” he asks.
“Yes, sir, I am,” Adam replies.
“CIA, right? I was Foreign Service, myself,” he says, and they begin discussing the various overseas countries they lived and worked in, throwing around a lot of indecipherable government lingo.
Finally! Some spy shit is about to go down, I think. This “random” meeting totally has the air of espionage about it, and the dude is straight out of central casting for a Tom Clancy film adaptation, or maybe even a Bond villain—he has a fucking eye patch, for Chrissakes! I listen to their conversation intently, sure that his whole spiel about being a senior State Department chargé d’affaires in Africa is merely a ruse. He’s slick all right, I think. Just look at that eye patch—he’s probably been tailing us since we left the house. I wonder if Steven over at Uncle Ping’s is one of his assets.
I check his abdomen, looking for the print of a concealed appendix-carry handgun, maybe even a cool old-school OSS-style dagger, but he looks clean. After five minutes of rapid-fire government-speak consisting of various diplomatic personnel they have in common as well as lots of cryptic abbreviations and sub-Saharan geographic references I don’t recognize, the conversation winds to an end. I watch them shake hands closely, checking to see if any secret message capsules are passed—no such luck.
As weird as it is to be walking around with a former spy and as undeniably freaking awesome as this old guy looks, the fact remains that you can’t throw a rock in Northern Virginia without hitting a senior citizen who used to work for the government in some capacity. It’s also a fact that I read way too many Ian Fleming books in my early twenties, so as much as I would love the old man to be up to some skulduggery, he’s carrying okra and Hanover tomatoes in an eco-friendly recycled shopping bag, not state secrets in a false-bottomed attaché case. We leave the market, stopping to say goodbye to the Republicans and Democrats on the way out, Ted and I both eager to take portraits of the cigar smokers.
Ted and Adam chat easily with the Republicans, who openly respect their service as Marine Corps veterans. One of them, an Army vet wearing what amounts to an American flag leisure suit, fondly recounts a platoon of Marines saving his ass when he was pinned down back in Vietnam. “We were pretty screwed. Then I saw the Marines come up over the hill, and it was like a tidal wave—they just wiped out everything in front of them,” he says with a wistful smile, almost as if he’s revisiting a favorite vacation memory, not the horrors of nearly dying in combat. I’m grateful I’ve never experienced anything like that but can plainly see what a valuable political bridge-building asset Dunigan’s military service could be.
We hop back in Ted’s car and head back to Alexandria for a meeting of the Business Detectives Club being held at Port City Brewing Company. This turns out to be a networking event, something I’ve always tried to avoid like the plague (and have so far effortlessly succeeded at doing so, since I’ve never been invited to one). We gather in a private upstairs bar room, and everyone puts on a name tag sticker. I decide to get into the spirit, telling Dunigan that as I am indeed a self-employed business owner, I rank a name tag, but before I have the chance to get creative, he quickly makes me one that reads “HELLO my name is: Randy Blythe, author/musician” (Adam doesn’t make Ted one, as he would probably just modify it to say something like “HELLO my name is: FUCK YOU, Dad/Sniper”).
There is a brief introduction from the event organizer, then for the next forty minutes or so I listen to thirty-seven individual sixty-second business pitches. Politics is business, especially inside the Beltway, so Adam takes a turn, pitching his candidacy and telling the assorted business detectives that although the economy ain’t doing so hot these days, to not let these uncertain times make them give up on America.
I try to remain engaged and pay attention to what everyone is saying, but my attention drifts, until I hear a wellness-industry-type lady say something that sounds suspiciously like she has a supplement for sale that will cure cancer. “Oh, and we have a probiotic that is fantastic for your vagina,” she adds by way of finishing her pitch. Noted. Everyone at the meeting is very nice, but as I’m basically a caveman, I can’t relate to the ongoing discussions of burn rates, scalability, P&L statements, and all that other business-dude stuff, so I’m happy when we leave to grab a quick bite near Adam’s before heading to the Capitol.
We ditch Ted’s car and catch an Uber into D.C., getting out a few blocks away from the Capitol, approaching from the west side, where most of the Y’all Qaeda storming went down on January 6. We stop to take a few photos of Adam on the bright Capitol steps but don’t linger in the open sun long. It’s eighty-six degrees in the District today, but it feels like at least 100, and I’m drenched with sweat by the time we make it to the other side of the building.
We’re here for speeches from A4AL, the Alliance for American Leadership, a bipartisan PAC formed last year that focuses exclusively on restoring foreign assistance. As we round the corner, I see 120 A4AL volunteers, mostly Gen Z college students sweating it out in blazers, ties, and pantsuits, many holding banners printed with the logo of the recently Elon Musk–demolished USAID. The twenty-something executive director of A4AL begins speaking passionately about the moral rectitude and geopolitically strategic and fiscal wisdom of releasing foreign aid. He goes on to introduce four congressmen from both parties, who expound on the same talking points.
“I would challenge anyone, Republican or Democrat, the president or Russ Vought—anyone—if you saw a child starving, would you take a dollar out of your pocket to feed that child?” says James Walkinshaw, a Democrat representing Virginia’s Eleventh District.
Of course we would. Everyone claps, and I even get a little choked up hearing the question—but this is perhaps the biggest problem with how everyone in D.C. has dealt with Trump and his cabinet of human sharks, men like Russell Vought and Stephen Miller. Logic and the frothy emotional appeals that trigger so much knee-jerk pain in bleeding hearts like my own have exactly zero impact on Trump and Co. Why? Because they are cold-blooded psychopaths who wouldn’t piss on a starving child to put it out if it was on fire in the desert. They know precisely what will happen to millions of people in poor countries if U.S. foreign aid is cut off—they just don’t care. If they did, they would behave and legislate differently. That’s the blatantly obvious, in-your-face, hey-stupid-wake-the-fuck-up-and-stop-pretending-like-these-are-normal-people truth of the matter.
JFK’s concept of soft power doesn’t exist in their cutthroat worldview, nor does it matter to these people that U.S. foreign aid makes up only a fraction over 1 percent of the total federal budget (roughly $80 billion annually). What matters is that Trump’s 2017 TCJA (Tax Cuts and Jobs Act) and further legislation like the Big Beautiful Billionaire Blowjob will benefit the top 1 percent of earners in the U.S. to the tune of $117 billion in 2026 alone. Follow the money, numbskulls—that’s the only thing that matters.
All the “Please, President Trump, don’t you have a heart?” talk makes my skin crawl, the temperature outside is still rising, and we’ve been going nonstop. I’m ready for an ice-cold NA beer—it’s time to head over to Freddie’s in Pentagon City.
The sign above the entrance to Freddie’s Beach Bar reads “…a ‘straight-friendly’ GAY BAR. All-inclusive. All Welcome,” which is indeed welcoming and nice, and even takes the edge off a little as I walk through the rainbow-flag-festooned front door. I’m not experiencing nerves because there’s a bunch of gays in there—gay people don’t make me nervous, because, um, that’s fucking stupid—I’m just experiencing the old alcoholic’s Pavlovian response to entering a barroom full of cops, gay or not. Danger, Will Robinson, danger. Maybe you should rethink this.
But I’ve been sober for a long time now, so I probably won’t wind up fighting anyone or randomly breaking things because my moronic drunk brain is amused by such stupidities, so I figure I have a pretty decent chance of escaping Freddie’s without being placed in cuffs. The cops here for today’s “Pride with the Police” event seem to be cool anyway, along with an assortment of firefighters, EMTs, and emergency management personnel.
It’s also difficult to stay nervous about the po-po when ABBA is cranking and you’re standing in a room that calls to mind what would happen if a Barbie doll factory exploded at a Tina Turner gig going down inside a New Orleans riverboat casino on the Fourth of July, which is exactly what Freddie’s looks like. I order a Heineken 0.0, and Adam introduces me to the mustachioed owner, Freddie Lutz—as promised, he’s great. We talk a bit about our mutual friend, the Virginia state senator Danica Roem, and Freddie shows me a video of Danica marrying him and his partner of twenty-eight years, Johnny, on a wedding chapel float during last year’s D.C. Pride parade. It’s a good hang, but I am here to cover a campaign, so I ask him if he feels, as a gay man, that the current political climate has grown more intolerant.
“Oh, God, yes,” he says, growing dark. “I grew up around here in the ’60s and ’70s—it feels more dangerous now than it did then.”
I wasn’t alive during the ’60s and was just a child during the ’70s, but as someone who well remembers how much open fear and hatred of gay people (gay men in particular) there was during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, this is depressing, if shocking, news. President Reagan certainly didn’t help, never even publicly acknowledging that AIDS existed until 1985. Even so, the Gipper was still no Donald Trump as far as levels of pure invective and riling up angry people looking for someone to blame their problems on, someones like Regina Jozet, the drag queen who has just begun calling bingo from the small stage in the front of the club.
I order another beer and take photos of Adam as he talks to the bar patrons. I even meet a gay cop fan who saw my band the last time we played in nearby Maryland. This place is completely bananas, I think, looking at all the gay firefighters and lesbian cops in uniform yelling “bingo!” and whooping it up when Regina calls “O-69!” Everyone’s in a good mood, and the beers are cold, but after another half hour, it’s time to go—we have yet another event to get to.
The Back House Studio in Falls Church is a video broadcast production studio owned by one of Dunigan’s campaign volunteers. We’re here for a small informal town hall; the main room is set up as if for an evening news broadcast, with twenty folding chairs for the audience. I take a seat in the back, chatting with a young couple in their early twenties. I ask them why they are here (they are scared for their future), if they are familiar with Adam’s platform points (they are), and, if so, what is the number one issue they hope to see addressed first if he is elected.
The young lady, a sunny glasses-wearing Mexican American, immediately blurts out, “Abolish ICE!” Her immigrant parents have been here for thirty years, are taxpaying business and property owners, but don’t hold U.S. citizenship. Her mother is too nervous to go to immigration hearings now, terrified of being deported back to Mexico and having to start her life all over again in a country she no longer knows.
The young man, a fan of my band, calmly replies, “AI,” which is platform point #6: Regulating Artificial Intelligence. Virginia has built more data centers than any other state in the union, and the lack of transparency around the cost, both economic and environmental, has many Virginians up in arms. Both of these young people are bright, college educated, and highly motivated, but neither of them sees much of a professional future for themselves in light of the rapidly increasing encroachment of AI into the job space.
“My boss even laughed in my face about AI the other day,” the young lady tells me. “He said, ‘I’ve been here a long time, so I’m going to be OK, but you? You’re probably going to be replaced.’ What kind of person would actually say something like that out loud?” The kind of person given a permission structure to be a complete dick by the current president, I think.
As the town hall starts, I wish them both luck, telling them that what they are doing by merely being here—engaging in the political process—is important. “After tonight, go talk to your friends. Speak with them about these issues. Get them involved. Make sure they are registered to vote. Don’t give up—your voice matters.”
A young Iranian American woman named Vienna Lionheart walks with a noticeable limp to the front of the room. She bills herself as the world’s first female ambidextrous solo violinist, and begins the evening by playing “Flight of the Bumblebee” at an incredibly rapid speed. We all applaud as she and Adam take a seat behind the curved newscaster’s desk, and he asks Vienna to share the story of how she came to America. She relates an awful tale of being arrested at age ten on the way to violin lessons. An Iranian policeman spotted her concealed violin case and attacked her, breaking her leg in the process and causing neurological damage that she suffers from to this day. This occurred simply because she was a female carrying a musical instrument in culturally repressive Iran. Vienna and her dissident father eventually escaped the country, sneaking over the Turkish border. They came to America when Vienna received a scholarship to the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, and have remained here ever since.
The Iranian regime is undeniably horrific, and Vienna’s story is living proof—that’s why a significant majority of the Iranian population, somewhere around 70 to 80 percent, is against the continuation of the Islamic Republic. But it’s hard to rise up and overthrow a totalitarian theocracy when (a) you’re unarmed, and (b) you’re too scared to go outside because the U.S. and Israel have been bombing your neighborhood into smithereens. Air campaigns alone are not effective agents of regime change—never have been, never will be. What is? Boots on the ground. But that means a whole lot of dead American soldiers, and the American people don’t have the stomach for that, nor should they. Oddly, Dunigan and Trump share a campaign point here, #7: Stopping Forever Wars.
At a campaign rally on January 6, 2024, Trump told the gathered MAGA faithful that once he was back in office, the U.S. would “turn the page forever on those foolish, stupid days of never-ending wars. They never ended.” Trump seems to have forgotten that campaign promise, perhaps because he got too excited after successfully playing long-distance G.I. Joe in Venezuela, or maybe it’s because the only war pain he’s ever experienced was from the bone spurs he suddenly developed when Vietnam came calling. But Iran isn’t Venezuela, and now here we are, four months into another forever war. And yes, Dunigan’s campaigning against those same endless wars just like Trump did, but since he actually went to Afghanistan to fight in one of those nasty little things, I’m hoping he won’t develop the same sort of amnesia if he ever gets into office.
Adam thanks Vienna for her story, then opens up to questions from the audience, who provide some thoughtful queries. His answers are measured, thorough, and, refreshingly in today’s infantile world of name-calling and whataboutism-as-political-speech, solution oriented and policy driven. But the most striking moment for this writer comes when Vienna is asked why she’s supporting Dunigan’s candidacy. “In short, I think that with Adam’s experience as a former CIA case officer, he is capable of winning and fit for this office,” she says, and Dunigan looks honestly surprised. “It’s surreal to have an Iranian American say ‘I love the CIA,’” he jokes, which gets a huge laugh. It’s funny, but I doubt that most of the young people laughing know about the CIA-orchestrated 1953 Mosaddegh coup, which led us directly to where we are today.
Dunigan is well aware of the CIA’s shady rep with the public, but he’s hoping his background there will work more in his favor than against. After all, he’s lived inside the belly of the beast—he knows the way it works, and feels he can utilize that experience as a positive agent of change. But it’s a double-edged sword because, well, he’s lived inside the belly of the beast, and there’s an old saying: “Once a CIA agent, always a CIA agent.” Some voters, even those who agree with his platform implicitly, will have a hard time getting around that, but Adam’s convinced that if he can just talk to people, tell them what he’s about, and answer some hard questions, then he can win them over.
Ironically, I wonder if he developed that sort of confidence during his time with the Agency—after all, a spy who lacked belief in themself and their ability to convince people of all sorts of things would most likely wind up dead in pretty short order. “I have to believe I can win this thing,” I hear him say more than once during our time together. “I don’t have any other choice.” Whatever the source of that belief, I do think it’s genuine, as is his desire to make things better for our country.
But I also can’t help but think there’s some part of him that decided to incinerate his old life and run for office just to find out if he was up for it. I suspect this because I have that same reckless need to shake things up and test myself, and I know it when I see it in others. Nothing risked, nothing gained, so fuck it—let’s see what happens. “If you’re not approaching politics from a first principle of curiosity, then you’re not participating in democracy,” he says.
That’s why I’m here—I’m curious—and I’ve definitely been participating in democracy, running all over Northern Virginia and D.C., observing Adam meet people, talking to anyone who will listen about his platform, and answering their questions. We’ve been to a farmers market, a business incubator, the U.S. Capitol, a gay bar full of cops, and a town hall full of Iranian, Panamanian, and Ethiopian immigrants—I’m exhausted.
“So has this been a pretty average day for you, schedule-wise?” I ask.
“Yep,” he sighs, “except on fundraising days. Then I have to spend all day on the phone, calling people and trying to convince them to give me money. Those days are the worst.”
It’s almost ten o’clock by the time we grab a late dinner with some volunteers, and I’m totally shot, asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow at midnight. But this is what I came to see, to learn what grassroots political campaigning looks like and how the sausage hopefully gets made when you don’t have corporate donors or backing from the establishment members of your own party. It’s an all-day endless grind of burning shoe leather and fruitless phone calls, and you’d have to be either crazy or truly convinced that you can make things better to live this way for any extended amount of time. Dunigan has been at it for seven months solid—he’s got to be a little of both by now.
The next morning, Ted picks us up, and we drive back into D.C., parking near the Lincoln Memorial. A short walk later, and there it is—the Reflecting Pool. And yes, even under today’s cloudy skies, it’s still greener than a Granny Smith apple. The entire pool is surrounded by a chain-link fence along with signs saying “DANGER: EXPLOSIVES” and “COMING TO YOU ON JULY 4TH,” but as we all know by now, the pool wasn’t ready in time for our nation’s 250th birthday. So what exactly will be coming to us? More algae? Most likely… along with another $14.7 million no-bid contract repair bill, paid for with our federal tax dollars. The Fourth has long come and gone, but as of this writing the fence is still up, and now it’s covered with black fabric. [Update: After a second round of repairs, the pool began refilling on October 12.]
The whole thing is a perfect symbol of Trump’s time in office—his endless parade of fear-driven agitations, followed by ridiculous empty promises, then their inevitable failure, which he proceeds to blame on anyone and everyone but himself. “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it,” he famously said at the 2016 RNC. He must not have been talking about a water filtration system, and the Reflecting Pool is just one of many very expensive disasters he’s instigated that the American public continues to pay for. Now that particular disaster is barely hidden behind a long black fence, but if his approval ratings across the board are any indication, the long black fence of lies and distractions Trump has erected around his presidency is beginning to teeter. It’s quite fragile, and in fact, always has been—a few good yanks from determined hands and the whole thing will collapse. But our democracy is equally as fragile, and if Trump has done us any favors, it’s pointing out the glaring weak spots in our system.
“Have you no sense of decency, sir?” chief counsel for the U.S. Army Joseph Welch famously asked in 1954, finally putting an end to Joseph McCarthy’s reign of terror. Donald Trump would have eaten that question for breakfast, shat it out onto a bumper sticker, then sold it beside his mug shot T-shirts at MAGA rally merch stands. No, sir, no decency at all. And someone like Trump was always waiting to happen—we just hadn’t met him yet. But he’s here now, and the template has been set. If our Republic is to survive the long-term impacts of Trumpism, we’ll need aggressive fighters with determined hands.
Dunigan leans heavily into that need with campaign point #8: Defending Democracy, Fighting Authoritarianism. From what I’ve seen, the kid’s got heart, as the old boxing saying goes. But willingness to fight alone isn’t enough, and every fighter has flaws, so I probe.
“What do you think is the weakest aspect of yourself as a candidate?” I ask.
“The deeper legislative history behind most of the things I’m engaging with,” he immediately replies. “But I see that as a potential advantage, because I’m coming into these issues with fresh eyes, issues that somebody who’s a bit closer to the forest might miss for the trees. Some people might see that as a weakness, because they want somebody who’s wonky and policy-minded, and I don’t begrudge them that. But I think we’ve had a lot of lawyers, a lot of policy wonks, and a lot of people who’ve focused on the bureaucratic procedural side of things at the expense of actual values, or doing the right thing when it matters because it doesn’t fit their preconceived notion of the legislative concept.”
He goes on to speak of mentors he has been cultivating in the policy, advocacy, and community organizing spaces, even respectfully mentioning his opponent Don Beyer as a potential mentor, a man he has a cordial relationship with. “I think the zero-sum mentality in politics is killing us. I don’t think Don Beyer has it, and I definitely don’t have it… I don’t want to walk in like an idiot, and I don’t want to be a bull in a china shop. But I do want to break some plates, and I do want to move a lot faster than we have in the past.”
We leave the Reflecting Pool and wander through the Lincoln Memorial, pausing to stare up at the famous craggy brow. Lincoln certainly had his flaws, especially viewed through modern eyes, but he presided over the most brutally divisive and bloody period in American history, staying focused on the preservation of the Union. The disarray of modern America is maddening, disheartening, and oh-so-distracting, and in many ways it feels like we are running out of time. But unlike the days of Lincoln, we do not have a president concerned with the preservation of anything other than his own grasp on power and rapidly increasing bank account. These are not normal times, and business as usual is done. Members of our Congress and Supreme Court are either in Trump’s pocket or rendered ineffective as they desperately try to restore a broken status quo, and the madness of perpetual incumbency is on full display. We have to try something different, and we need to do it now—it’s way past time to break a few plates. At the very least, Adam Dunigan is pissed off enough to try.
I hope there are more like him.
Postscript: Adam Dunigan’s opponent, Don Beyer, won the Democratic primary in the Eighth District. However, for a first-time candidate who literally came out of nowhere (spies tend to do that) just months before the election, Dunigan captured a very respectable 9 percent of the vote. After asking around, to my knowledge, he hasn’t taken a cushy consulting gig or gone back to the Agency—this leads me to believe he will probably run again in 2028. As of this writing, he has the largest Instagram following of any political figure in the state of Virginia, including the governor. His website is www.adamdunigan.com.
Yes, this was a long piece. Working on something shorter for the next one.
Main photo by Randy Blythe “Nowhere on this building does it say “Property of Jeff Bezos/Mark Zuckerberg/Elon Musk”— nor anyone else. There is no corporate logo on the Capitol building. Remember- this is our house.”
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