My authentic plan for the ultimate a part of this miniseries was to do Trump vs. Purple Cranium. A shameless Nazi with a bizarrely coloured face? How might I resist?
And but, the deeper we plunge into the flaming, festering hell pit that’s Trump’s second time period, the extra I start to marvel if I’m totally heading in the right direction. MAGA’s pretend geek guys may even view these villainous comparisons as compliments. Extra importantly, am I giving Trump an excessive amount of credit score?
To be clear: I stand by my earlier analyses. Trump is a worse president than Luthor, a extra prolific killer than the Joker, and a extra ruthless dictator than Physician Doom. However every of these villains is his personal man along with his personal concepts, mind, and ethical code, equivalent to it’s. However Trump? He’s extra puppet than grasp.
And that brings us to right this moment’s put up.
For many who haven’t heard of the Ventriloquist—one among Batman’s lesser-known nemeses, to make certain—he debuted in Detective Comics #583-584. The Ventriloquist’s puppet, Scarface, is a drug-dealing mobster who slaughters traitors and rivals alike. The Ventriloquist himself is meek, squeamish, and such a non-entity that he didn’t get an actual identify—Arnold Wesker—or an origin till a number of years after his debut.
However don’t really feel too sorry for him.
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“Only following orders,” you say? Now why does that sound acquainted? Ah, sure, the Last Report back to the Secretary of the Military on the Nuernberg Conflict Crimes Trials. Right here’s one selection passage (emphasis mine):
“That the incredible massacres [of Eastern Europe Jews] charged in the indictment had in fact occurred, the documentary proof left no doubt….Some of the defendants endeavored to deny personal participation in these murders; most leaned heavily on the defense of ‘superior orders’….[T]he Tribunal sentenced [SS Major General Otto] Ohlendorf and thirteen other defendants to death by hanging.” (Web page 189-190)
Yeah, “only following orders” just isn’t an effective way to generate sympathy on your character, however that will not have been their intention: some tales depict Scarface as a magical object that controls weak individuals, whereas others declare he’s only a conduit for Wesker to behave out his violent fantasies. Both manner, Wesker turns into so depending on Scarface that, when disadvantaged of his firm, he both falls aside or, extra generally, seeks a substitute. A literal sock on his hand is healthier than dealing with life alone.
Now let’s flip to Trump. If this man ever had an authentic concept or a private accomplishment, they’re well-buried beneath a mountain vary of billion-dollar missteps. His “opinions” and “morals” could be predicted primarily based on who’s round him and what he sees on tv:
Whether it is true that, as Oscar Wilde wrote, “most people are other people,” it’s actually extra true of Trump than of anybody with out such a excessive degree of unearned privilege that it insulates them in opposition to having to develop fundamental ethics and significant considering expertise.
So, right here we’ve got two males who’re clearly and hopelessly in thrall to others. How will we resolve which one is the larger puppet? Detective Comics #831 supplies a clue. When Harley Quinn was first incarcerated, Wesker risked Scarface’s wrath to brighten her day.
Wesker was keen to endure abuse from his puppet grasp—whether or not you interpret that as a psychological sickness or a cursed doll—simply to make another person blissful.
There it’s, then: two pathetic males who recurrently allow the fee of horrific acts and refuse to take duty for themselves, however one among them nonetheless has sufficient decency deep down inside to at the very least strive, at private expense, to assist one other individual and curb his grasp’s worst excesses. And he isn’t the one who was elected president of the USA.
