America is a land of proud traditions. The Super Bowl, the Fourth of July, sorority rush season — there are certain events that mark the passing of a year. For nearly 60 years, one of those traditions has been the annual christmastime release of the Hess Truck.
Now, however, Hess has turned that tradition putrid and foul; infected it with the fascist stink of police militarization. Not only is this year’s Hess Truck a cop, it’s a two-part set that includes both a massive truck and a military armored personnel carrier.
That APC is referred to as a “cruiser,” a term which generally refers to standard patrol cars — Chargers, Taurii, maybe something as big as a Tahoe. It does not traditionally mean genuine military equipment that’s been reallocated for domestic police use. Worse, applying the label “cruiser” to military hardware, especially in the context of a children’s toy, starts to normalize it. Keep it up for long enough, and suddenly the societal mental image of a standard cop car is no longer a Crown Vic — it’s an MRAP. With a “slide-out battering ram” on the front.
The last cop car Hess made was 30 years ago, when its 1993 “truck” was a Chrysler K car knockoff with lights on the roof. Even in police livery, a three-box sedan can at least pretend to be a family vehicle — appearing helpful, perhaps even nurturing despite what may be going on inside. This 2023 APC does away with all of that. This is a weapon wielded by an occupying force, not a vehicle meant to protect and serve.
Of course, the titular Hess Truck itself this year shows how wrong things have gone. This isn’t the first Hess Truck to contain another vehicle — past installments have had helicopters, motorcycles, even race cars. But this year’s setup is a tacit admission that the Hess War Machine within the truck isn’t really meant to stand alone on American roads. It’s built to withstand IEDs, its battering ram designed to puncture fortified structures. The APC is a vehicle built for war, and that doesn’t change when they show up in local law enforcement parking lots. They just bring the war home to the imperial core.
I realize I’m complaining about a Hess Truck here, a toy designed to sell an oil company to children. It’s never been a morally wholesome product. But this year, the evil that Hess sells is far more direct than microplastics or climate change — it’s the ever-more overwhelming, unchecked power of local police.