I’ve been a fan of Superman for a long time, so I have been eagerly awaiting his newest movie incarnation. And I must say, it is strange to see this iconic American hero targeted by people who call themselves patriots.
There’s a lot to like about Superman. He fights fascism and bigotry. He uses his power to defend the powerless. He is humble and kind. He loves his family, dog and adopted country. He promotes “truth, justice and the American way.”
It is a sign of how twisted our political culture has become that Fox News pundits were already ranting angrily about the latest Superman even before the movie came out.
Here’s what apparently set them off: Director James Gunn said in an interview, “Superman is the story of America. An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country. But for me it’s mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost.”
That’s all it took.
In these days when MAGA leaders are fanning anti-immigration sentiment and pundits sneer at kindness and empathy as weakness, the description of Superman’s story as an American immigrant story was enough for MAGA to declare the movie “superwoke.”
One of the more ridiculous comments came from Fox host Jesse Watters, who said, “You know what is says on his cape? MS-13.”
Seriously, he said that.
Watters’s toxic idiocy reflected the way President Trump’s anti-immigrant enforcers fanned fears about gang violence to convince Americans to accept the unacceptable: smearing people as MS-13 members on little or no evidence beyond bogus claims about tattoos and sending those men to a foreign concentration camp where they may spend the rest of their lives without the chance to prove their innocence.
Unfortunately, Republicans in Congress have responded to the lawlessness and brutality of the Trump-era Immigrations and Customs Enforcement by showering ICE with tens of billions of dollars to hire 10,000 new enforcement officers and create our own domestic concentration camps.
Rewarding bad behavior this way will only embolden the worst impulses of the people running ICE operations. It is the opposite of accountability.
The creation and expansion of a massive, violent, unaccountable secret police force responding to the whims of our authoritarian president and the anti-immigrant obsessions of his henchman Stephen Miller is frightening. It’s especially frightening in the context of last week’s transformation of Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok.
Responding to right-wing complaints that Grok was too “woke,” Musk and his team adjusted its algorithms. Trained on the stream of sewage that flows through 4chan and Musk’s X platform, Grok became a virtual neo-Nazi, spewing antisemitism and expressing admiration for Adolf Hitler.
X has since removed some of those posts, but the episode made it clear just how quickly a powerful social media platform could be weaponized to demonize groups of people even more aggressively than bots and online extremists already do.
It made me think of the way radio hosts in Rwanda urged ethnic Hutus to commit genocide against their Tutsi neighbors after first demonizing them with propaganda.
There is a dangerously gleeful cruelty to the way politicians like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem celebrate ICE’s warrantless abductions to foreign prison camps and their repellently merry marketing of the inhumane concentration camp in the Florida Everglades as “Alligator Alcatraz.”
The president’s pal Laura Loomer posted on X, “The good news is, alligators are guaranteed at least 65 million meals if we start now,” which the New York Times observed was “an apparent reference to the entire Hispanic population of the United States.”
Even if you dismiss Loomer’s comments as attention-seeking clickbait, they’re a sad indicator of what’s acceptable and even welcome in MAGA culture.
That brings me back to Superman and a reminder that American political culture hasn’t always been this way and doesn’t have to stay this way.
When Norman Lear and his colleagues chose People For the American Way as the name of the group I now lead, they were aligning themselves with a set of aspirational values deeply rooted in American ideals. I’ve often used “truth, justice, and the American way” as a shorthand description of our work.
Christopher Reeve, the actor whose iconic portrayal of Superman kicked off the era of modern superhero movies, was a friend of People For the American Way and other groups working to advance those ideals.
I believe the bigotry and cruelty wallowed in by so many MAGA leaders is turning off millions of Americans who know in their gut that it’s wrong and it’s un-American.
Artists and entertainers, like political leaders, can inspire us to do better. Godspeed, Superman.
Svante Myrick is president of People For the American Way.
