Welcome to a different installment of the restricted collection during which I evaluate comicdom’s best villains to America’s worst politician.
You most likely all noticed this one coming. Joker is, in any case, probably the most overexposed widespread villains on the market. No much less a determine than Mark Hamill has famous similarities between the Clown Prince of Crime and the Clown Prick of Politics.
Alas, the audio now not works, but it surely as soon as featured Hamill-as-Joker studying one in every of Trump’s tweets. This tweet alone nonetheless proves my level.
Across the time of Trump’s first underwhelming inauguration, I bear in mind seeing this panel floating round for instance of how the Joker at the very least had a single ethical fiber as in contrast with the brand new president’s zero:
This scene is from Batman and Captain America, during which the Joker unwittingly finally ends up working for Crimson Cranium. Upon studying of the Crimson Cranium’s political affiliation and being instructed he would make a “superb Nazi,” Joker reacts as you see above. He then (apparently) is killed whereas making an attempt to sabotage Cranium’s plan to nuke D.C.
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You wouldn’t catch this dude claiming that Nazis will be “very fine people,” I let you know what. In the meantime, Trump’s vice presidents—each the official and unofficial ones—merrily defended Different für Deutschland, Germany’s neo-Nazi social gathering, within the run-up to that nation’s February election. Elon Musk went full-frontal fascist with no whisper of condemnation from Trump or any of his cronies.
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As compelling as this picture is, although, it has one massive weak spot: Batman and Captain America is an Elseworlds story, so it by no means really occurred. In its protection, everybody’s characterizations stay very recognizable, so it’s not out of the query that “our” Joker would react the identical approach in related circumstances.
On the entire, it doesn’t matter what universe he’s in, the Joker isn’t a political man. However on the uncommon events he does take an curiosity, the white-faced man reveals extra integrity than the orange-faced one.
Within the notorious A Demise within the Household, a cash-strapped Joker decides to promote the nuclear missile he has mendacity round to Islamic terrorists in Lebanon. Not like Trump, who offered provides and succor to the likes of Vladimir Putin with no strings hooked up, Joker boobytrapped the missile to explode on the touchdown pad, thus double-crossing the terrorists quite than serving to them.
Clearly, Trump shouldn’t have bombed Russia, however it will have been good if he confirmed the identical contempt for murderous dictators as he reveals for butterfly sanctuaries.
Even when Joker was appointed Iran’s U.N. ambassador for causes that completely make sense, he stayed true to himself quite than flip-flopping everywhere and got down to kill the complete Common Meeting, not simply Iran’s enemies. That makes him an equal-opportunity mass assassin quite than a vengeful bully who completely targets already susceptible teams.
However let’s get to the punchline. Like I mentioned, the Joker shouldn’t be a politician by nature. He’s a assassin. That’s his “job,” and he’s good at it: on-line estimates of his whole canonical physique depend (i.e., not counting deaths that happen exterior of mainstream continuity) vary from over 670 and counting to over 10,000.
And but, Trump continues to be worse.
In line with one estimate, over 300,000 folks had needlessly died of COVID-19 as of Could 2022 as a result of dropping vaccination charges. The vast majority of unvaccinated Individuals are in crimson states and purchased into the lies that Trump and his ilk have been spreading for the reason that pandemic started. (Dewormer nonetheless doesn’t treatment COVID.) That’s simply the COVID-related deaths. Add the individuals who died due to Trump’s different inhumane insurance policies—together with however not restricted to immigration and the dying penalty—and the Joker actually begins wanting like a slacker.
As a lot as I’d prefer to say that Trump is an anomaly, committing mass homicide is a presidential pastime. He’s not the one one who intentionally made the U.S.-Mexico border extra harmful. By the point Reagan bothered to publicly point out AIDS for the primary time, 12,000 Individuals had been useless. The Vietnam Battle, which each and every president from Eisenhower to Nixon had a hand in escalating, killed thousands and thousands.
You want tales about mass murderers? Neglect amateurs just like the Joker. Decide up a ebook by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
However hey, I don’t need to ship you away on such a downer. It is a put up concerning the Joker, in any case. So I’ll simply level out that the Joker is best at making use of natural-looking make-up than Trump, too.
Earlier Installments within the “Versus” Sequence:
Trump vs. Luthor