Good guys vs. bad guys

There is no world where Trump and Elon Musk and his minions are the good guys.

Good guys don’t ignore the Constitution.

Good guys don’t ignore the rule of law.

Good guys don’t pardon violent violent criminals and insurrectionists.

Good guys don’t put people into concentration camps.

Good guys don’t send innocent migrants and refugees back to the countries from which they fled in shackles and then lie about how they were supposedly all heinous criminals.

Good guys don’t fire people en masse.

Good guys don’t store classified information in an unsecured bathroom.

Good guys don’t steal personal data and email it in the open, unprotected, so that any criminal or opposing national organization can steal it.

Good guys don’t inspire others to send threatening phone calls or to SWAT public servants.

None of us want to be the bad guys. None of us want to be the villain. We all believe that we’re the heroes of our own stories, and that the people we support are the good guys. But there comes a time when that sophistry becomes untenable, when our delusional beliefs of our own heroic nature collapse in the face of reality – or we become so detached from reality that we become a danger to ourselves and others.

Trump and Musk and their minions, along with Congressional Republicans – they’re the villains. They’re the bad guys. And so is anyone who voted for Trump knowing full well that he was going to do the things listed above – and things much worse yet to come.

If you support Trump, if you support Musk, if you think the things they are doing, the chaos they’re creating, the laws they’re breaking are acceptable or justified, then you are the villain. You are the bad guy.

But if comic books teach us nothing else, they teach us that even villains can be redeemed if they wish to change. And if you find yourself supporting Trump and Musk in opposition to the rule of law and the separation of power, you too can choose to stop being a bad guy. You’ll have to learn and mature and put in the work, and you’ll have to ask those you’ve wronged for their forgiveness, and you’ll have to accept it with grace if they refuse to forgive you.

The choice is yours.