Trump paints a gruesome image of a post-apocalyptic America. His victory could make it come true.

There is a thrilling scene in the first Superman movie, which hit the silver screen in 1978. When Lois Lane suffocated and died after her car fell into a deep crevice and was entombed with soil and debris, Superman devised an ingenious plan to revive his beloved. He understood that by flying at an extremely high velocity around the Earth in the opposite direction of its current rotation, he could reverse the Earth’s spin. By doing so, he could turn back time.

Miraculously, our “man of steel” succeeded in saving his woman, this time before her car was swept away, without the Earth incinerating, without rivers and oceans washing over the land, and without mountains crumbling.

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Today’s white Christian nationalists are looking more and more like Nazis

The agenda peddled by today’s Christian right is scarily similar to Nazi ideology about gender, sexuality, and reproductive rights.

Attempting to take a page from Superman’s playbook, the Republican Party’s MAGA wing has been attempting to reverse the social, political, and legislative rotation of the United States by turning back the advances the country has made over the years.

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Donald Trump has painted a gruesome image of a post-apocalyptic America, replete with vicious marauding gangs, gunshots whizzing through inner cities, crumbling structures and highways, rampant poverty, declining health care systems, imminent terrorist attacks, and ruthless drug-dealing, rapist invaders from our southern border.

Trump has incited violence at his rallies, leading to the deadly Capitol insurrection by his fascist militia on January 6, 2021 and his second impeachment. He has stoked fear, stereotyping and scapegoating all Muslims and so-called “illegal aliens.” He promised to punish women and their doctors for having and performing abortions. He asserted that he would reestablish the Supreme Court to an ultra-conservative majority.

And after promising to “Make America Great Again,” Heir Donald not-so-solemnly proclaimed during his meandering diatribe in 2016 at the Republican National Convention: “I am your voice! I alone can fix it. I will restore law and order.”

Trump never asked anything of his supporters other than their total loyalty and complete faith in him. And the authoritarian personalities followed brown-shirted in lockstep.

Trump had his followers wax nostalgic about the television shows of their youth: Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show, Ozzy and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver, The Brady Bunch, Happy Days, and Full House, all reflecting the mainstream popular image of the American family as white and middle class with a nice home in the suburbs – and with all family members accepting their assigned scripts based on race and gender.

Today, with Trump as its presumptive leader, the Republican Party has set its sights further on reversing the rotation of the planet by becoming the party of the far distant past and the party of “no.”

• No abortion
• No federal funding for women’s healthcare clinics
• No national healthcare plan
• No appropriate and quick response to public health emergencies
• No governmental food subsidies
• No trust in climate science
• No trust in vaccines
• No paid parental leave
• No national childcare plan and no eldercare plan
• No Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in businesses and schools
• No Critical Race Theory
• No learning about race in schools
• No learning about gender in schools
• No learning about sexuality in schools
• No learning of “hard” history
• No reading of controversial books
• No (or restricted) government funding of public and school libraries
• No #BlackLivesMatter
• No #MeToo
• No #MarchforOurLives
• No to indigenous First Nations Peoples’ land claims
• No reparations to African Americans
• No progressive movements for change
• No bilingual education programs
• No free public higher education
• No judges & justices nominated by democrats
• No marriage equality
• No public accommodations for trans people
• No gender confirmation medical procedures for trans people
• No nonbinary definitions of gender
• No personalized pronouns
• No separation of “church & state”
• No limits on religious exemptions to civil rights laws
• No constraints on Christian Nationalism and white supremacy
• No consumer protections
• No government infrastructure projects
• No labor unions & no collective bargaining
• No guaranteed federal minimum living wage
• No workers’ rights
• No regulations on unfettered capitalism
• No authority of the federal government over states
• No NATO & no United Nations
• No engagement in world affairs
• No criticism of brutal authoritarian dictators
• No aid to Ukraine
• No hesitation to restrict promotions of military personnel, jeopardizing readiness
• No limits on fossil fuel emissions
• No limits on gas & oil drilling, mining, & deforestation
• No cleaning of the environment
• No commitment to clean energy sources
• No gun regulations of any kind
• No Black & Brown immigrants & no immigration reform
• No path to citizenship for Black & Brown undocumented immigrants
• No police reform
• No public safety net programs of any kind
• No reductions on student loan debt
• No supplemental nutrition assistance
• No reduction in prescription drug prices
• No voting rights & no GOP limits on gerrymandering
• No trust in the electorate to make informed decisions
• No trust in elections unless Republicans win
• No equitable & fair tax policies
• No narrowing of the massive income & wealth gaps
• No social security, no Medicare, & no Medicaid
• No government regulations on business & industry
• No prosecution of Capitol insurrectionists or any Republicans
• No accountability
• No acknowledgment of the systemic nature of oppression
• No acknowledgement of the unearned benefits and privileges of dominant group members
• No to woke
• No to knowing
• No interest in solving problems
• No desire to govern even when they have the power to do so
• No restraints on an unrelenting march to fascism
• No ethics, no truth, no facts, no decency, no compassion, no empathy
• No to the Constitution of the United States of America
• No democracy

Democracy, though, demands an educated electorate. Democracy demands responsibility on the part of the electorate to critically examine their politicians and the issues of the day so they can make truly informed decisions. Democracy demands us never to relinquish our freedom and authority for some promise of a comfortable security by returning to a fairytale past.

Those peaceful bygone days when lovely children played in beautifully landscaped yards within lily-white neighborhoods surrounded by rainbows above and unicorns strolling down the freshly cleansed sidewalks only ever existed in the minds of the cult believers.

Besides, if someone or some forces were actually to reverse the Earth’s rotation, the planet’s center of gravity would fail, the planet would instantly explode into a great conflagration, spin out of its orbit, and sling out into space to become a giant meteor.

Metaphorically (meteorically), maybe that is Trump and his MAGA followers’ intention.