If there’s one thing Gotham City is known for, it’s corruption. Sure, there’s that crazy bat guy, but for all his efforts the place is as grimy as ever. Until recently, I would have said the level of institutionalized degradation depicted in the various iterations of Gotham was a wild caricature of even the worst malfeasance the real world could offer. It seemed beyond belief that any place could be so rotten to its core.

Then came the Trump presidency. He was by no means the despot or savior portrayed by either conventional political camp, but he shook things up in Washington more than anyone in my lifetime. Even his half-hearted attempts to drain the swamp resulted in the tilting of many a villain’s hand, as the vast majority of government officials lost their damn minds.

Don’t get me wrong. I knew Washington was corrupt. I knew they protected their own. I knew any effort to peel back the mask of decency would be fought tooth and nail. I didn’t think it was full-court-press-to-gaslight-the-entire-world-into-becoming-germaphobes-to-facilitate-the-most-blatantly-compromised-election-in-modern-history level corruption. I thought we’d have more time before that stage.

Some have been sounding the alarm for years, railing against Bildeberg or the New World Order and whatnot. It would seem that many of these conspiracy theorists have been somewhat vindicated. Like the corrupt mayor, police commissioner, and DA in The Batman‘s Gotham, our world’s governments have indeed been scheming, exploiting the system for their own nefarious purposes. And, like the Riddler, many think their malfeasance runs marrow-deep, working corruption of blood, rendering not just a given system, but the entire organism inherently irredeemable.

And who can blame them? You don’t have to be an orphan cheated out of a charitable endowment to feel the pinch of corrupt institutions. Anyone who’s earned a paycheck or paid for the privilege of owning and using your own stuff has felt it. We all are familiar with mankind’s disposition to suffer rather than to right ourselves by abolishing the forms to which we are accustomed. Some of us have long since recognized in this a design to reduce us under absolute despotism and have determined to throw off such government.

Absolute despotism won’t go out quietly, though, and the institutions that symbiotically thrive alongside it have done everything they can in recent years to cast anyone who questions the wisdom of the state as dangerous subversives. Shoehorning conservatives and libertarians into the roles of villains has been routine in literature and film since many of us have been alive, but lately they’ve been broadening the scope from greedy capitalists to generally disgruntled citizenry. The Batman‘s depiction of the Riddler takes subtle jabs, for instance, at the online camaraderie of conservatives and the proudly self-professed autism among libertarian circles. Initially, this rubbed me the wrong way, but in this instance the characterization is somewhat accurate.

The average limited government enthusiast wouldn’t ever go full serial killer or mass shooter like The Riddler or his acolytes did, but there is a disturbing appetite for violence and discord among many. Some are all too eager for a Lexington or a Concord, just itching for the other side to shoot first. Some throw around tongue in cheek references to helicopter rides or woodchippers for tankies, communists, and child predators alike. Some eschew the violence, but will be satisfied with nothing less than the complete dissolution of all states. On the whole, there seems to be a trend even on the “live and let live” end of the spectrum toward dehumanizing opponents, excusing cruelty and hatred, and embracing unabashed prejudice.

In short, our world has gone full Gotham, so wretched in so many ways that even those who seek a better path can find themselves tarnished without even realizing it.

Telling right from wrong used to be, as the adage says, simple but not necessarily easy. We used to be able to trust that what causes us to feel shame was wrong and what causes us to feel reassurance, peace, and acceptance was right. Now people’s shame has become their pride and redemption has successfully been labeled condemnation. There’s only so many times wrong can be shoved in our faces before even those who are repulsed by it become desensitized to it. With our consciences on the fritz, it’s easy to gravitate to any beacon when trying to find our bearings.

Conservatives often look upon the Founders like Bruce Wayne regards his father. We understand that they were human and had faults, but we tend to lionize them and downplay their shortcomings. Libertarians sometimes believe themselves beyond the stumbling block of retribution, seeking instead restitution, but don’t see any dissonance between this and their goal of the utter ruin of their professed enemy: the state. Those of us who can’t fully embrace any such labels find ourselves distrusting just about everything under the sun. About all we have in common is a belief that our government is broken. Nothing will ever be set right without a dogged pursuit of justice and an adherence to it, but there is a real danger of losing oneself to that visceral sense of revenge.

No one is comfortable with Gotham as usual, but no one is taking the correct path to fix things. Gordon is trying to work within the system, bending some rules here and there, but still surprised to find that even his friends and coworkers are on the take. The Riddler is trying to expose the lies, but thinks that the only way to do so is to tear everything down, to wash it all away and if everyone goes with it, so be it. Catwoman cares nothing for the big picture, only seeking her own payback. Even Falcone, the Penguin, and the corrupt officials–those who should be sitting pretty–are feeling the weight of their crimes pushing backing on them. Only Batman is fighting the good fight, hanging in there despite flagging morale, buoyed only by the begrudging support of Alfred.

And nothing gets any better. If anything, it’s gotten worse. This disillusionment primed Bruce, however, to be receptive to some hard truths. First, his idol, his father, turned out to have been, to some degree, part of the problem. Then the villain he’d been working so hard to corner turned out to have taken his cues from Batman himself. It wasn’t until he was at death’s door, facing the loss of those few he’d allowed himself to care about, that he fully saw himself in his villains and his villains in himself.

He turned from Vengeance to fully become The Batman. He stopped trying to spread his pain around and started trying to actually save people. He saw people too terrified to take the necessary steps out of the darkness and became for them a beacon.

We, too, find ourselves disillusioned. From here we have an important choice. We can be Gordons, desperately bailing out a sinking ship. We can be Riddlers, telling ourselves that our aim is noble recompense, when all we’re really doing is trying to stump the world with our unique brilliance. We can be Penguins, waiting for the dust to settle so we can claim power for ourselves. We can be Catwomen, looking after ourselves, our loved ones, and no one else, running off down the road and hoping our problems don’t follow us. We can even be Vengeance, fighting for sake of fighting, lead not by some higher purpose, but by whomever is crafty or foolish enough to goad us.

Or we could be Batmen, divested enough to see that the system is too compromised for working from within to make much of a difference but concerned enough to try to preserve what is worth resuscitating. We could recognize that exposing lies and corruption, taking on all comers, and punishing villainy alone won’t make the kind of difference we need. We could show a thoroughly corrupted world that being right hardly matters if we’re not doing right.