Superman is as real as the 4th of July

The American dream will endure

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane!

Naw. It’s just a Qatari 747 luxury jetliner flying into the tiny hands of the most corrupt President in our history and in this age of vile villainy sweeping the globe I desperately need heroes reminding us virtue still exists.

Even if they are fictional.

Superman is pure fiction.

Yup. Not real. I just thought, in the age of Q-Anon, space lasers and lizard people, I'd get that one out of the way, right away, Marjorie.

Neither is Trump’s tan.

Before the MAGA right whines about Superman

Before the MAGA right wails about Superman’s “wokeness” it is clearly Superman’s mission to protect the weak. So, eat Kryptonite, red hats.

Before the MAGA right wails about Superman’s foreign sounding name, Kal-El, I’d like to point out it’s not much different from your average American name, like Beyonce, Barack or Zohran Mamdani.

Before your MAGA-right friends start claiming his parents were from Uganda, tell them the truth. According to his creators, Superman was born on the fictional planet Krypton, not to be confused with the very real factional world known as “MAGA-2025”, possibly the largest black hole in the known universe.

On the other hand, contrary to your assumptions, Clark Kent is real.

I know this because I worked with a lot of Clark Kents in a lot of American newsrooms. Brilliant but socially retarded dorks. They’re everywhere. Saving our democracy from real villainy.

Superman is a global icon of strength, selfless virtue and heroic moral character, a defender of the oppressed and the weak. In short, Superman is the anti-Trump, in every possible way.

On Superman’s first day in DC

And by DC I don’t mean the comic book publisher, I mean the District of Columbia. On his first day there Superman would drop Trump, Vance and the head of ICE into a Salvadoran prison, laser melt all the ICE concentration camps, end the Ukraine War in 24-minutes, exile Putin to Mars, bring peace to the Middle East.

Tragically for us this flying messianic savior is a fictional answer to the very real villains darkening our world, including our own homegrown bombastic brute, a bloated beast with a kisser coated with orange clown makeup, a full diaper, an empty work schedule, and evil global ambitions.

If only the greatest shirt button ripper in our mythological canon were flesh and blood.

Superman is ancient

America’s Superman was created close to one hundred years ago, in the nineteen thirties, by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two Jewish kids growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, who were profoundly rattled by the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany. Who can rescue the doomed multitudes across the sea from the rise of the anti-Semitic Fascists mass murdering their way across Europe?

Who?

No one?

Note: Hitler began murdering and persecuting Jews across Europe in 1938. America dragged its ass defending the world, as it always does, thanks to our America First isolationists, finally entering the war in 1941, only after we’d been attacked. Three years later, with millions already murdered in concentration camps, America launched the D-Day invasion in 1944. After twelve long years of horror, Hitler, surrounded by the Reds, blew his brains out.

Superman was inspired by a mythical guardian

The role of “guardian” is key to Superman’s ethos. Some of us are natural guardians, looking out for others, often the least among us.

Others, like our truly weird MAGA Republicans, could give a shit about you or anything but their dividends, their guns, their trucks and your wife’s uterus. The concept of a “guardian” is foolish in their Darwinian world. As Senator Joni Ernst said about their vicious Medicaid cuts, “We all die.”

Or as Mitch McConnell said, “They’ll get over it.”

Now imagine Superman saying that. With cold Darwinian indifference.

The Un-Christian cancer that pollutes the weary heart of our Republic is nearly intractable. The low arts have profited for decades by elevating the violent alpha male archetype. Bullies, rapists, womanizers, brutes, thugs and pigs dominate our news feeds.

Can’t blame the creators. They’re just serving our lowest denominator, the knuckle dragging wannabe Alphas among us, the pathetic macho males that spit on the weak, mock the infirm and revel in pissing on the least among us. You’ve seen them on YouTube and heard their ape-puke on Podcasts and you’ve seen their waddling King on the White House lawn.

You may be fine these days but I need to be reminded there are better angels among us. Real men. Kind men. Humble men. Truly strong men.

Superman rescues and inspires us. Carries us away from the burning house fire that is our country just as it begins to collapses on us. Rescues us from Trump’s cheap comic book villains; his dumb, loud, arrogant Hegsethian macho boys, rude, lewd and tattooed, chest thumping and strutting for MAGA, Jesus and guns. Infants with stubble. Dime-store Dr.Dooms.

Counterculture superhero

We’ve all seen buff and tough Superman swiftly “dispatch” with a villain. When it’s essential. Sometimes you got no choice but to sock a bad palooka on the chin and send ‘em flying.

Here are our favorite myth’s virtues. Superman is merciful.

Restrained.

Kind.

Honorable.

Humble.

Compassionate.

Restrained.

Courageous.

Intelligent.

And for a guy that’s invulnerable, he can be vulnerable.

Superman is an icon of countercultural masculinity.

The current prehistoric standards for men are killing all of us. The pathetic need to be physically strong, aggressive, emotionally hard, always winning, sexually dominant, utterly self-reliant and competitive to the grave is paleolithic. Uncivilized and unrestrained, American society is devolving back to the veldt, before homo sapines found refuge in the trees, unraveling our democracy as we grow progressively dumber.

Our way of life rewards this behavior.

With this common reality I need the uncommon fiction of Superman nursing what I call my power of positive delusion.

The Golem

Jerry and Joe modeled their Superman character after a mythical guardian from Jewish folk tales called the Golem, a defender of the weak, a benevolent strong man made of clay. When he first showed up in print Superman was called “the champion of the oppressed", which was a characteristic of the Golem.

Golem

Jerry and Joe were so successful they inspired a young Jewish American named Jack Kirby to create “Captain America”. In one adventure Captain America goes after the Nazi Bundt in America.

Among Superman's early adventures, one escapade had him catching Hitler and Stalin and taking them to be judged by the League of Nations. Raging Hitler, who was painfully sensitive, like all narcissists, accused American comics of pursuing a “Jewish agenda”.

Sometimes the news is so horrifying

Sometimes the news is so horrifying I never want to leave my Fortress of Solitude. But like Superman, my friends, we have no choice but to fight for what is right no matter the cost.

If Superman were real he would have captured the entire Trump team, including the super villains, Noem and Hegseth, and dropped them all in a Netherlands prison to be judged at the Hague.

If Superman were real Elon Musk and his Tech Bros would have been sentenced to the Phantom Zone, an eternal multi-dimensional prison for the most heinous criminals of Krypton, along with General Zod, Ursa, Non, Brainiac, Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller.

And I have no doubt if Superman were real this headline would have appeared by now:

During Superman's Oval Office Visit, "Krypton" Bites
President, Trump orders Kristi Noem "kill that dog!" 

Followed within the hour by the following headline:

Bullets ricochet off "Krypton", 
Superman razes White House, 
President flees to Putin's lair

Which brings me to my point. Alas, Superman is not real. But you are.

And you have amazing superpowers.

You’re able to organize faster than a speeding locomotive.

You’re able to vote villains out with a single ballot and to leap over lies in a single fact check.

You, my friend, are able to save our world without laser vision,the gift of flight or a red cape.

Do not despair of this world when it appears as though the super villains are winning. When Superman is asked, “why are you here in this world?” he doesn’t hesitate.

“I am here to fight for Truth, Justice and the American Way.”

What a coincidence. Welcome to the Resistance.