But the subtitle of this website, you may be thinking, is Political Philosophy for the Superhero Enthusiast. Isn’t politics the proverbial bread and butter of such a site? The short answer is no. Politics is the dog and pony show, the actuarial power brokering that our democratic republic has steadily devolved into from the moment it was conceived. Political philosophy is the moral and ethical reasoning upon which our government was founded and that informs it continuation. So while I am fascinated and driven by political philosophy, I wouldn’t touch politics with a ten foot pole unless something drastic had changed.
Unless you’ve been under a rock this last year, you know that this is exactly what has happened.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Bizarro World, a place where spheres are cubes, up is down, and politics as usual are anything but. And who or what ushered us into this topsy-turvy world? The quintessential Bizarro politician himself, Donald Trump.
I hesitate for many reasons to make such a comparison. First of all, I try to focus on the ideas that undergird our system and that will hopefully some day forge a better one. To focus on people is to invite confusion. Am I attacking the man or his policies? While people can and certainly do get riled up over ideas, they tend to do so based at least on a modicum of reason. People support others and defend them tooth and nail often for no other reason than an affinity for one superficial thing or another. I try to avoid ad hominem and remain above the fray so I don’t alienate my target audience–those with enough humility and sense to admit when they’ve learned something new or contrary to what they thought they’d known before. Secondly, I don’t think Trump is a villain. It’s as easy as it is cheap to vilify one’s intellectual opponents. Third, and most importantly, the person I’m about to contrast him to is by no means a Superman. But despite my reservations, this comparison is the only thing that makes some sort of sense of this election cycle.
The thought first occurred to me when I learned that Ben Carson had endorsed Trump–Ben Carson, who doesn’t have a brash bone in his body, whose campaign seemed almost antithetical to every aspect of Trump’s. Body snatchers seemed the obvious culprit, especially after Chris Christie’s eerily subservient press conference appearance, but it wasn’t just the endorsement. It was the ostensible reason why. Within weeks of publishing a defiant op ed stating that he refused to bend to the conventional wisdom that he should bow out and make way for more electable candidates–thereby reaffirming that his campaign was and always would be predicated on his values and not on the polls of the day–he drops out because the numbers aren’t in his favor and throws his weight behind the man who has taken virtually a diametrically opposed tact on every count, and for no more substantive reason than he’s winning. Such a reversal is no mere shift in tactic or change in the driver’s seat. It is a fundamental shift across a central axis. It’s save=kill. It’s love=hate. It’s chalky skin and a backward S.
Benzarro might have been the most glaring example to date, but he is by no means the first example of an inverse of normalcy. His about face is just the latest in almost a year’s worth of actions and reactions that have played out practically the opposite of how pundits and analysts predicted. Gaffs that would have sunk any normal candidacy have somehow actually lead to bumps in the polls for Trump. Candidates that were considered serious contenders–whose names had been bandied about as potential saviors of conservatism–languished in the polls, fought like dogs for the scraps from Trump’s table, and eventually atrophied into mere footnotes in the history of year of the outsider. It truly is a new political paradigm made in Trump’s Bizarro image. But what force could be powerful enough to spawn a creature that could reshape the landscape seemingly overnight?
Like many comic book characters, Bizarro himself has multiple origins, depending on which era or medium one refers to. One thing, however, is constant. He is always a copy of Kal-El of Krypton, albeit an imperfect one. He is the product of failed attempts to reproduce the world’s most powerful champion. Trump is likewise an imperfect copy of a powerful champion, Barack Obama.
As I said, I hardly regard Obama as Supermanesque. Truth be told, I fear he is closer to the villain end of the spectrum, but for a moment let’s set aside distinctions of hero and villain and look at each man’s political character. Obama, for all his superficial differences from the stereotypical politician, is, well, a stereotypical politician. He is articulate, smooth, nuanced. Trump is clumsy, brash, and blunt. Obama would have us believe that he is calm, cool, and collected, though his often vindictive and callous behavior betray a paper thin skin and a seething undercurrent of rage. Conversely, Trump proudly espouses an unapologetic anger, but carries himself with lightly toasted buoyancy of one a few drinks into happy hour. Obama can seemingly do no wrong by much of the media, where Trump can do no right. Across this particular inversion we see the imperfection of Bizarrodom itself, as Obama’s political Teflon coating is due to few media outlets taking him to task for more than a day or two on any of his missteps or misguided policies, where Trump is untouchable despite the relentless onslaught of virtually every facet of the press.
A true opposite of Superman would be weak and powerless. Instead, Bizarro is every bit the physical match for the Man of Steel, but with ironic little quirks like fire breath and freeze vision. In short they are equally formidable, and while ostensibly they are diametrically opposed to one another, they are in truth mirror images of one another: superficially opposite, with motives that would have them at odds, but with actions and impetus that are unmistakably similar. Likewise, Obama may have been the game changer, the vanguard of the new paradigm complete with messianic undertones, but Trump is the inevitable backlash, the attempt to harness that same power for the opposing side, an attempt which has taken on a life of its own, unstoppable, a deafening feedback loop that has overtaken and crowded out everything around it.
It remains to be seen how long our collective stay in htraE will last. It could be over as soon as late July [Editor’s note: This post was initially written during the midst of the Republican primariy season.] It could last until late January 2025. It is my hope that however long we inhabit this Bizarro world we can use its unflattering reflection to better assess the strengths and weaknesses in our own respective philosophies of government. And if Trumpzarro wins the day, we may yet be surprised by how well we fare despite the upended status quo. After all, even Bizarro has saved the day before… or is that wrecked it?
Nobody understands Bizarro-speak.