American Supervillain
In comics, one of the most meaningful, scholarly questions presented is a variation of the chicken and the egg problem: who came first, the superhero or the supervillain?
One of the greatest critiques along these lines is The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. The four part graphic novel is an indictment of Batman and the chaos he brings. The Joker would never be an issue if The Batman hadn’t created himself to begin with. In some ways, this resolves the chicken and egg problem; after all, The Joker did literally come into existence after The Batman did, and The Joker exists by indirect influence of Batman himself.
This morning, Donald Trump tweeted the above. I immediately retweeted it and labeled it as ‘supervillain talk.’ Quite a shift from ‘locker room talk’, but still dangerous.
The threat that Donald Trump poses to America has been well documented. One of the most compelling arguments I’ve read is not suitable for the mainstream because of its complexity, but I think the argument for Donald Trump as the Nietzschean Ubermensch holds a lot of weight, particularly because the Ubermensch follows his own morality, not that of anyone else.
SINCE Donald Trump assures us that the Bible is his favorite book, it's worth asking: Just what is his theology? After…www.nytimes.com
Donald Trump is not the only person in America who embodies extreme viewpoints that are harmful, even supervillainous. Martin Shkreli raised the prices of a rare but life-saving drug by 5500% all because it’s hard to sell a drug that only 300 people need. Peter Thiel funded a lawsuit against unpopular but legitimate journalism outlet Gawker to get back at them for outing him as gay in 2007. Roger Ailes, former Chairman and CEO of Fox News, was run out of the company after allegations of sexual harassment against female Fox employees came to light.
These are all one-off instances, representative of the ability money and privilege has in America. And you have Donald Trump, saying things about how he can do what he wants with women because he’s a star. Evil is manifest in many forms, in little spurts and big waves.
The question I have is, who created Donald Trump? Who created Roger Ailes and Martin Shkreli? Who created the American Supervillain?
