The Acting Director of DHS absolutely dominates his professional glamour shots.

BY PETE TOTHERO

SAY WHAT YOU WILL about the fact that armed troops of the federal government have rolled into Portland, Oregon, against the wishes of our city’s mayor, the state’s representatives, the state’s senators, and the state’s governor, and that mainstream, fairly conservative media sources are pointing out that the occupying troops have snatched citizens who have committed no crimes and thrown them into unmarked minivans, you do have to admit that Chad Wolf, unconfirmed substitute/interim director (in an ongoing capacity) of the Department of “Homeland” Security (scare quotes mine, because I’ve always found the word homeland funny) absolutely found himself here.

We’ve all been there: you’re hurriedly preparing to organize American forces to occupy an American city against that city’s will and without notifying any of that city’s leaders. There’s a lot to think about and organize. There are planes to book, buses to gas up, you’re busy trying to figure out how to rent a bunch of GMC Yukons with California plates, meanwhile guys are interrupting you to ask if they should bring their own pillows, someone’s complaining that PokPok is closed and so they’re worried they won’t know where to get dinner…it’s stressful. I know when I’m doing this kind of thing—creating a fake and silly mini-war over the matter of about four square blocks for a demented President too busy arranging beans on his desk to really help—there’s something I forget every. Single. Time.

The professional photographer.

This is why I am an amateur and even though my dudes and I have a great time when we gas and snatch citizens of a West Coast city that people on the East Coast don’t really care about (which is why we get away with it!), I always regret that I don’t do a better job of capturing those memories.

Chad Wolf, on the other hand, is a pro. He is living his best life in Portland, is absolutely crushing it, and has found himself. I mean, how cool is this:

Chad Wolf demonstrates that the lambada is actually easy to learn if you break it down into steps.

You probably can’t see them because of the camouflage, but if you look from the right angle, you may be able to just barely detect the presence of adroitly arranged “POLICE” captured in soft focus in the foreground. Notice savvy use of in-frame compositional lines—the white marble wall and the orange line mid-frame—that lead the eye to the true subject of the photograph: Chad Wolf.

And that’s just the beginning. I mean, say all you want about the patriotism of gassing your own country’s citizens, but this guy looks hot af in Portland, and he knows it. Check out what he “saw in Portland yesterday”:

Every frame of what Chad Wolf “saw in Portland” is a photo of himself.

What you saw was yourself four ways, king! And don’t be so modest, dropping these snaps all in one tweet. When you bring a professional photographer, that person’s job is to—not to put too fine a point on it—take a shit-ton of photos, right? (Apologies for the split infinitive, felt like going for it.) That means temporary-but-really-not-but-whuh? leader Wolf had to spend some time looking over a bunch of possible frames and selecting the ones in which he thought he looked absolutely the finest. Let’s show him and his photographer the proper respect, then, and check these out:

A man explains to Chad Wolf that there are basically three seasons in Portland: rain, colder rain, and summer. Wolf has arrived in summer, the man says, and will look amazing in our northern light.

Love the visual commentary in the frame above: Portland, a city cowering in the shadows of graffiti, is visited by a being arriving from the light. I particularly like this as a first frame, because it draws the viewer in with a sense of mystery: Who is this illuminated soul bringing a crisp suit and polished shoes to our city that knows no such refinement? (Spoiler: it’s Chad Wolf.)

Chad Wolf appears momentarily confused as a police officer explains that the park across the street does not belong to the federal government, and citizens have a constitutional right to protest there.

Now we get our formal, powerful introduction. No more shadowed mystery here: What Chad Wolf is seeing in Portland is, as this frame reveals: Chad Wolf in Portland. It’s a new thing for him, a new way of being, and it’s feeling…pretty effing good.

Typical Portland graffiti: messages against the Ku Klux Klan, supportive of Black Lives Matter, and a quote from Hillel the Elder. Standard radical leftist positions and intellectualism.

Savvy move in this frame: again, all compositional lines lead to our hero. But now the photographer has introduced tension via obstacles. Notice how Wolf is visually bounded to the left, right, and foreground by the horrible graffiti that represents the city of Portland under siege. Wolf assumes a power stance at a slight angle to the lens, which gives him a dynamic sense of potential action. All of the other men in the frame are looking at or oriented toward Wolf, object of the male gaze. (And deservedly so!)

An officer explains that although Lillard had beef with Westbrook, it was actually Paul George guarding him at the end of game five, which was interesting because…

I just don’t see how people can keep saying Chad Wolf is using violence against citizens of Portland as an opportunity for a cynical political photo-op and a test-run of state terror when the thoughtful, hands-in-pockets posture he adopts here (as he listens to a charming local demonstrate the standard technique—“gripping-and-skipping”—used in these parts when throwing cannisters of tear gas into groups protesting police violence) could only be more darling if he were burping a baby over his shoulder while doing so. If you look at Wolf’s gaze, it’s pretty clear that what he’s seeing here in Portland is: a lot more of Chad Wolf in Portland!

Because a man like Chad Wolf can’t stop not stopping, he gifted the public a reply to his own tweet that featured further photos of his own (fine) self. Post it or paste it—just make sure you don’t waste it!

“Acting” Secretary Chad Wolf replies to his own post of photos of himself with more photos of himself.

By “institutions of justice” he means a couple buildings, and by “violent anarchists” he means people who remove chain-link fences the police put up, but let’s not split hairs. Let’s just glory in the visual dominance so carefully constructed that it’s practically…propagantastic!

BRAD WOLF offers words of encouragement to police in a still from THE VALIANT PREVAIL (2020).

Wolf’s further set of photos of himself in reply to his first set of photos of himself references his first (posted) photo of himself, and who doesn’t like a good callback? In that first shot of soft-focus uniform backs, though, Wolf was small in the frame, supported by the institutional orange line and white marble wall. In the frame above, we see that he has now broken free of the need for visual support and has become his own man. This is what happens in Portland, my dude! Heroes are born!

The Department of Homeland Security flag captured in its “fluffed” position behind Chad Wolf.

Oh. My. God. They went for it here, and I am so glad they did. This composition suggests that Wolf is not only at the top of the pyramid of power (all lines lead to Wolf), but the use of the shadowed table gap suggests he is, um…endowed with almost superhuman…potency? I mean, we would have to ask his wife for confirmation, but I don’t think that’s necessary, do you? The photographer wouldn’t suggest it if it weren’t true.

A POLICE asks Chad Wolf why he asked them to rent so many GMC Yukons, and explains that one rental place switched them to a Chrysler Pacifica, which they complained about, but is that okay?

The gent to the left of the frame above is how you should picture me as I write this: absolutely enraptured as a stern and commanding Chad Wolf patiently listens to the doubts and fears of various, um…officers of POLICE (?)…as they prepare to defend federal property against [checks notes] a crowd of people eating ribs and dancing while listening to Childish Gambino in the park across the street. These are the moments men remember their entire lives.

Brad Wolf explains to POLICE that he has only had it up “to here” with police violence and groundless detainment, by which he means he would actually be okay with more of it.

I love it when a photo stream ends on a warmhearted joke. In the frame above, Chad Wolf does one of his classic bits: he explains that the reason we know the earth is flat is that if you put your hand level with, say, the top of Mount Hood, and then you bring your hand straight into your body, it’s clear that Mount Hood only comes up to, like, your lower chest. Therefore, the earth is flat. The POLICE on the right anticipates the punchline in a state of delight, while the POLICE on the left, who has apparently not seen Wolf’s stand-up before, listens. (The POLICE in the middle feels like he did during that one Coen Brothers movie he saw: Is this for real?)

Again, I know that on the surface it looks like Chad Wolf is a blundering pretty boy violating our constitutional rights in various ways, enacting violence upon the citizens he has actually sworn to defend, while primarily interested in acting as an effete errand boy to the daft toddler playing a slobbering version of strong-daddy back in DC. But has that not, at some point, been each and every one of us? Look at these photos again. Is Chad Wolf not having the time of his life in Portland?

I guarantee he’s living here within six months.