Superhero Politics Podcast
Welcome to the Superhero Politics Podcast, where we delve into the fascinating intersection of politics and superheroes! Join us as we explore the parallel worlds of caped crusaders and the corridors of power, dissecting how our favorite superheroes and their stories mirror real-world political dilemmas.
From the ethical implications of vigilante justice to the politics of government oversight, we navigate the thrilling landscapes of comic book universes to uncover the profound social commentary lurking beneath the spandex. Whether you're a political junkie or a superhero aficionado, this podcast is your passport to an exhilarating journey where superheroes and politics collide!
Superhero Politics Podcast
No Kings or Conquerors
Michael Holmes returns to the Superhero Politics Podcast with a powerful examination of America's political landscape in 2025, drawing fascinating parallels between current events and comic book narratives that feel eerily prophetic.
The episode dissects Trump's return to power after winning both the popular vote and Electoral College in 2024, despite Kamala Harris's valiant campaign. Holmes doesn't hold back in his analysis, noting how the assassination attempt on Trump seemed to galvanize his supporters who viewed it as an omen of his destined comeback.
Comic readers will appreciate the sharp comparisons between today's political climate and storylines like DC's "Absolute Power" and "Daredevil Reborn," where Amanda Waller controls metahumans and Wilson Fisk becomes mayor of New York – both mirroring the authoritarian tendencies emerging in American politics. "When I think about who he is," Holmes reflects, "I think about Lex Luthor as president and Wilson Fisk as mayor, but I also think about the Purple Man and how he's able to sway people's minds against their better judgment."
The episode explores what Holmes dubs the "billionaire civil war" between Trump and Elon Musk (sarcastically nicknamed "Phony Stark"). After spending $235 million to help elect Trump, Musk's Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) spectacularly failed, shifting from promises of saving $2 trillion to ultimately costing taxpayers money. Now threatening to form his own political party, Musk represents another comic book trope – the billionaire whose ego drives political ambition.
Perhaps most alarming is the discussion of Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill," which Holmes warns contains Medicaid cuts strategically delayed until after the 2026 midterms. The immigration crackdown targeting even those pursuing legal channels draws direct comparisons to dystopian comic scenarios where organizations like HYDRA-infiltrated SHIELD target vulnerable populations.
Whether you're a political junkie, comic enthusiast, or concerned citizen, this episode offers a unique framework for understanding America's current challenges. As Holmes reminds us in his powerful closing: "You are not powerless – you don't have to be a superhuman to be a super human."
Subscribe, follow us on TikTok and YouTube, and join our community as we continue navigating the intersection of politics and superhero narratives in these unprecedented times.
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Welcome back to Superhero Politics Podcast. This is your host, michael Holmes, and I know it's been a minute, and so we're back recapping all the things that happened in 2024 and going into what's happening in the new year. I know I say this every time I take a long break I'm back again and refreshed, and all that other stuff. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know I say this every time I take a long break I'm back again and refreshed, and all that other stuff. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, but I'm back. Right, I know October 2024 was the last time that we were together and a lot has happened since then. I think I said the last time we were on that we were going to either have the first female president of the United States or we're going to both the popular vote and also the Electoral College, winning every swing state. Now, that is not to say Kamala Harris, who, um mounted a valiant campaign with 108 days to to to do that, and so it was a pretty valiant campaign, uh that she, she mounted, uh, she was able to raise like almost a billion dollars, um billion and a half dollars in that period of time, but there was just too much hangover and lag from the Biden campaign and everything that had happened. Plus, you had an assassination attempt on Donald Trump's life, which I think a lot of people saw as kind of a omen or a sign that he was destined to return to power. And so it was just a lot that happened in that. And so here we are, you know, fast forward to 2025. And it, needless to say, got off with a, you know, incredible start. And so, you know it, it's taken the country, um, in a lot of different ways. And so, you know, I'm just here as your friendly neighborhood host, councilman, consultant, comic, nerd and, um, unapologetically um political podcaster, just to kind of bring you up to speed and welcome you guys back to superhero politics.
Speaker 1:And so, you know, 2024, man, last time we were together it was a pressure cooker, and you know Biden had taken on the debate and it didn't go well at all. It was messy, he looked terrible, and the party began to say, hey, you got to step down, and at that time there wasn't really a plan for that Right. And so Kamala Harris, the heir apparent, stepped in, and it wasn't without controversy, because there was not really a primary. That happened, and you know, she was able to step out, you know, as the vice president, and take over the nomination. And some people thought, well, you know, she's not ready, she hasn't won any votes, nobody voted for her, and there was a lot of consternation back and forth, but on the other side, it was complete and utter unanimity, right, it was Republicans behind Trump, 10 toes down. I mean, they had a primary, but Ron DeSantis dropped out, a lot of the other ones dropped out, nikki Haley stayed in for a little while, but they all ended up bending the knee right, and so they all dropped out. And so, despite January 6th, despite 91 felony indictments and 34 felony convictions, donald Trump was nominated again by the Republican Party. Complete and utter allegiance to him, complete and utter unanimity behind him, and he became president of the United States again.
Speaker 1:And so you know, there it is. I mean there it is. I mean the comic world had a lot of stuff going on too. I mean we've got absolute power. That happened, which showed Amanda Waller being, you know, the arbiter of all things, meta Right, and she kind of paralleled what fascism looks like and taking down the, those with the metagene stealing the powers, using the Amazo robots and the Brainiac Queen to steal powers and corral and capture all the metahumans in the Absolute Power series. And that's kind of what we always think of when we think about the parallels between what's happening in comics and happening now, because, you know, fast forward to 2025, we've got Donald Trump, who came back to power essentially promising retribution. He didn't come back with this unifying speech. He didn't even try. If you guys remember the first term when he came to power, he essentially recreated the speech Bane gave in the Dark Knight Rises and this time he didn't even provide any pretense. He was like all those who came after me, all those who impeached me, all those who investigated me, I'm going to get you, I'm going to take you down, and that's essentially what he has been trying to do.
Speaker 1:Guys have been watching Daredevil Reborn. This is extremely reminiscent of the way Wilson Fisk Kingpin took over New York and became mayor. It's almost eerie, right, and you guys can probably see my hoodie that I have on and you can find this at my online store. The notes will be. You can find this at my online store. The notes will be in the show notes.
Speaker 1:But this has got Trump and Lex when Lex became president. But Donald Trump hasn't governed as president the way Lex Luthor has governed. He didn't try to solve any problems. He didn't try to do anything. He hasn't tried to really solve the world's problems. Lex's ego wanted him to be able to not only mess with Superman, which I think to some degree. Trump is a troll, right, and he's trying to needle the Obamas and the Bushes and all the political folks. He's trying to needle them. But you know, to the end he also wants to be seen as a great leader, as a world-changing figure, and he keeps failing miserably, like the Fox News poll that came out the other day and it rated Biden ahead of Trump. It rated Obama in the top seven of presidents all time and and rated Trump dead last. Like dead last, like the worst president in history, like last. Like there's some pretty bad presidents out there that we've had, but they rated Trump dead last. So you know it was.
Speaker 1:It's been an interesting time. We've had, obviously, the war in Gaza. That has yet to be resolved. Trump promised to do that on day one. He hasn't. You have now the war with Israel in Iran and you know no Israel and Iran and no really resolution for that, and Iran is back enriching nuclear material. You've got the war in Ukraine. That continues to go. You start to see this rift in between Putin and Trump, even though Trump pretty much has done the bidding of Russia during his tenure in politics. And then, on the other front, what happened after the election was that you had the rise of who I like to call Phony Stark, which is Elon Musk. Elon Musk spent $235 million electing Donald Trump in 2024.
Speaker 1:And he was given the directive to form what is called DOGE, which is the Department of Governmental Efficiency, and it was a spectacular failure. It blew up like one of the spacex rockets that he tries to launch. So he brought in all these so-called whiz kids who were ai you know, ai programmers and they were going to find and modernize government and they were going to make it more efficient, and all they did was just come in and cut people's jobs. They didn't even really understand what those people did like. They fired the people who handle the nuclear codes because they didn't really understand the job, and then they had to hire everybody back and air traffic controllers got fired and there were planes dropping out of the sky.
Speaker 1:And then, and when you went back and tallied all the things that doge actually saved. They actually cost us money. I mean, the original goal was that doge actually saved. They actually cost us money. I mean the original goal was that Doge was going to sell, not sell. Well, freudian, slip there that Doge was going to save $2 trillion, and then it ended up not saving anything. It was like, okay, so let's move the goalposts a little bit. It goes from $2 trillion down to $1 trillion. And then it was like, well, maybe that's a little rosy, let's go from $1 trillion down to $120 billion. And then they were like, hey, look, we're not even going to be able to get that.
Speaker 1:So ultimately, if you look at what Doge actually saved versus what it cost America, it was a spectacular failure. So he slinked out of the government, having cost the valuation of Tesla upon hundreds of billions of dollars. The year-over-year sales for Tesla is in the tank. There's absolutely no market in Europe for it, people have abandoned it, and even here in America sales are slow, and so he actually damaged a lot of Tesla's reputation, and so his exit gave him the opportunity to be able to say to the world hey, you know, trump and I are not necessarily joined at the hip, we're not fused, you know, it's not like Vegito or Goku or anything like that. It's not like Superbat when Batman and Superman fuse together. We're two separate people and we differ.
Speaker 1:So when it came time for Trump to pass his signature piece of legislation, which is called the Big Beautiful Bill, which just passed and was signed into law on Independence Day, july 4th Happy 4th of July, by the way and so all those things happened up until this point, right? And so Musk threatened Republicans the same Republicans he had helped get in office by spending hundreds of millions of dollars. He threatened them to form either to primary them or he was going to form an entirely new party aimed at taking down anybody who voted for Trump's legislation. So it was, it's been a really kind of chaotic time in the world of politics. I mean, we've got, you know, tick, tock, deep face. Really kind of chaotic time in the world of politics. I mean, we've got, you know Tick, tock, deep Face. We've got AI bots, fox News running propaganda, you know the same old things that we have. We have trade wars, with the entire world and China attacking us via trade and supply chains, and so it's been really wild in the last six or seven months since we were together.
Speaker 1:You know, we have Marvel in DC, we have some new movies that are out, thunderbolts came out on the Marvel side and we had a couple of series on Disney+. We had the Spider-Man animated series, which was okay, you know. We also had Daredevil Reborn, which came out, which is really, really a good return to integrate Daredevil and Kingpin into the new MCU, phase five, and so it was an interesting series because it was trying to reform the idea of Wilson Fisk Kingpin. But he couldn't escape his nature, and this is kind of the same debate that we had about Trump. Right, we thought, well, maybe after the assassination attempt he's going to turn over a new leaf, maybe he learned from the first term and he's going to govern for America. Nope, didn't happen. So when you, you know, look at some of the legislation, the crackdown on immigration, you look at all those things, it is a retribution tour.
Speaker 1:And so, uh, at least in Daredevil Reborn, wilson Fisk gave it a good try, like he really tried to walk the straight and narrow, he really tried to be a change man and govern, um, uh, as a, as a statesman, as a leader, but he couldn't escape his nature. And this is why, when every time we talk about, um, heroes and villains, um, it's, it's, it's a clear, it's a clear split, right, it's clear, you know, a hero's going hero and a villain's going villain, right. And so the question that we have now in society is who is the hero and who is the villain, right? Some people think that Trump is a savior, like he's, you know, he's their Messiah. You got folks who are actually out here saying, you know, up under, up under God, there's Trump, and that's crazy to me, but that's it. I mean, we're thinking about how Kamala Khan now is kind of the mutant messiah in Marvel, right. And you think about Hope Summers, who was the mutant messiah, and, you know, in X-Men. You think about all of these things and how people will elevate an individual up to be kind of that presence, that messianic type presence, to be kind of that presence, that messianic type presence. And Trump has benefited from that because he has been able to convince people that, no matter what he does, he's right. Even when it turns out wrong, it's somebody else's fault. Even when it's directly something that he does somehow or another, he's not responsible for it. And so when I think about who he is, obviously, you know, I think about Lex Luthor as president and I think about Wilson Fisk as mayor, but I also think about the purple man. Right, I also think about the purple man and Jessica Jones and how, somehow or another, he just is able to sway the minds of people, to be against their better nature and act against their judgment. And so right now, we're in the throes of this debate with the big, beautiful bill that just passed Congress.
Speaker 1:Congress. There were many, many Republican electeds who know this bill is bad and it was going to brutalize the people that are in their districts. Yet, somehow or another, they were not able to stand up against the offensive the threat or charm offensive, depending on where you stand of Donald Trump. He just was able to get them to bend the knee, and so, with the majorities in the House and the Senate being so narrow, he couldn't afford to lose but a few votes here or there. And then he ended up losing three votes in the Senate, with Susan Collins and Tom Tillis, who is one of our senators here in the state of North Carolina, who then summarily announced that he was not going to run for re-election because he knew that he could not win with the albatross of this bill around his neck.
Speaker 1:And then you had Rand Paul from Kentucky, who is just a fiscal hawk, and he thought the bill raised the deficit too much, in which it does add, you know, several trillion dollars to the debt over the next 10 years, while cutting a trillion dollars out of Medicaid, which is the, which is the safety net for lower income Americans. And so it was a really terrible bill, but Trump needed it to get the tax cuts that he wanted for corporations and for high earning individuals. And so, even though these folks know that it is going to be a bloodletting in 2026, it is going to be a bloodletting Now, they knew it. So the structure of the bill comes through and they say, well, we're going to delay the worst parts of the bill until after the election. We're going to delay the cuts to Medicaid until 2027, which gets you beyond the midterms. And so they can say, well, look, you know, nobody's been hurt yet. Nobody's been hurt yet. See, vote for us, keep us in power, nobody's going to be hurt.
Speaker 1:As a matter of fact, if you keep us in power, we could possibly fix some of these things so that they don't go into effect. I know we passed them, like I know we did, like I know we passed them not thinking about how it's going to harm you, but give us a chance, we'll fix it before it comes due right. Um, and also some of the provisions that people thought were good, like no tax on overtime and no tax on tips and no tax um on um, social security none of those things are really there and if they are there, they expire by 2028, just in time for the next election, next presidential election. So imagine that. So there was a lot of bad things in that bill and so many of the Republicans who had a chance to be heroic and stop the bill, they just couldn't get past their villainous nature and they voted for the bill and so it passed very narrowly and you've got a lot of different Republicans and a lot of different Democrats who are already out trying to sell this bill.
Speaker 1:But you know, you look at, you know where we are now in the comic space and we've got in a few days. Five days from now, james Gunn is releasing Superman, the reboot, right, and this is the new DCU. It used to be the DCEU, dc Extended Universe, and now it's just the DCU, kind of in line with the MCU, and so there's been a lot of back and forth about the movie, about the costume, about David Cornswet, about Nicholas Holt, who comes over from Marvel. You know, he played Beast in the X-Men series. He comes over from Marvel to play Lex Luthor, and there's been a lot of back and forth about, you know, does Corn Sweat? Is it more comic accurate? Is the suit more comic accurate? Is his portrayal of Clark Kent more comic accurate? And so a lot of back and forth about it.
Speaker 1:But I think what's happening is you're starting to see like a little bit of buzz. I mean, I think people were, um, really disappointed at the end of the last phase of DC. I mean, you didn't have anything that that did well, right. You didn't have anything that did well. Blue beetle tankeded, I think, obviously, wonder Woman 84, the Flash, all underwhelmed at the box office, right, or at least were not critically received well, right. And so this is the fresh start, and it's apropos that this is a fresh start, because superman is a flagship character, right, a lot of people loved henry cavill as superman. I did personally, um, but I mean, nothing is forever, and so what we have now is we've just got these new, um, these new actors coming in. It's been confirmed that that Gal Gadot is out and maybe Adria Adjoina is going to be the new Wonder Woman. There are other actresses that are Aiza Gonzalez, other actresses who are in the mix for that, and so they're rebooting the entire DCU.
Speaker 1:One of the holdovers, though, from the previous DCEU is Jason Momoa is coming back as Lobo, and I think everybody's pretty happy about that. I think when he became Aquaman, I think it was cool, I think people liked it in the, the kind of the gruff, gritty take on aquaman, but, um, it was really just uh, never really the type of fit. Everybody immediately saw him with the long hair and the in the gravelly voice and the and the facial hair and said, yo, that's lobo, he's got to Lobo and so now he's going to be Lobo, and so it's been a pretty good run. Marvel has hit some speed bumps, but they've got a new series up, ironheart, and if we're going to be political about it, the boys is doing what the boys always do in the comment sections.
Speaker 1:Here we are, and immediately, because we have demonized DEI and affirmative action. We've demonized those things. Trump did that in his first executive order when he signed to eliminate DEI and all of the government. Now, anytime that you see a black person, a woman, a gay person, anybody who happens to be on the screen, they're immediately labeled as DEI, as affirmative action. And we've got Ironheart, who we all saw on Wakanda Forever. Riri Williams, who is getting her own series Haven't started watching it yet, about to do it, probably later on this week but they're always saying that this is affirmative action, this is a DEI. We have Captain America, brave New World, where, you know, people were glazing Batman for not having powers but slamming Sam Wilson for not having powers. You know, slamming Tony Stark didn't have powers but somehow or another, sam Wilson should have taken the super soldier serum Right.
Speaker 1:And so there's always this battle. There's always this battle and it seems to have been heightened over the last decade because now that you see more and more heroes of color, not just and they don't want to have that representation which mirrors what's happening in the country. Like right now we're actively hunting down minorities and Hispanics, like we're hunting them down in this immigration push. Now we're being very selective about it, obviously because we know where they are, but they also populate industries that no American is going to do. No American is going to do these jobs, and so we're just kind of faking the funk and looking over like, oh no, we don't see them, but we know where they are and it's kind of selective. And so, in order to hit the numbers, we're grabbing random people off the street, people who don't have criminal records, people who have been here for 40 years, who came here as children, people who are actively going through the naturalization process. We're snagging people At the immigration offices, people who are going in for their, for their appointments to go through the immigration process. A mask agents of ice is pulling up on them and grabbing them. Right, it's like. It's like, if you know, you know you had SHIELD, who had been infiltrated by Hydra pulling up and grabbing, uh, mutants and metahumans off the street and it's.
Speaker 1:It's really indicative of where America is right now that we can't agree on a single space where collaboration, unity, diversity fits right. We can't agree on a single space, right. We know that in our economy and I say this as an elected official, I say this as a degreed economist, I say this as someone who works every single day to build policy, build policy and infrastructure that can benefit the lives of everybody that is either in my city or in my state or anywhere around the world. And so when you see that we are destabilizing the ability to collaborate, it is dangerous. It's dangerous to our future, because now, in order to set things back to a reasonable, moderate center, we've swung so far right. Now we're going to have to swing back so far left just to get back to the middle, and so we're going to be constantly in this state of flux.
Speaker 1:And you know, if you guys have watched the multiverse saga, if you guys watched, you know, the Flashpoint saga, it is a delicate balance on how we keep our society from imploding, but we're just doing things now that don't really make a lot of sense when it comes to how do we keep people enlightened? Like we're banning books. Like we're you know, all over the country, now we've gotten this idea that if you have any type of dissent about America, that you know you're, you're the enemy Right, and so now we're banning books. We're, you know, couching everything under DEI and we're removing the contributions of great black Americans and Hispanic Americans and LGBTQ Americans and women from everything. We're actually actively pushing to rename our military bases after Confederate soldiers the Confederacy. My God, like we're actually we're actively like glazing the Confederacy, we're bringing it back, glazing the Confederacy, we're bringing it back.
Speaker 1:I mean you're starting, you see now that people are riding around all over the city, all over the state country with three flags. They're riding around with the American flag, the Confederate flag and the Trump flag. If you see those things, they're all together, they're always together. You see the American flag and sometimes in the, you know, the flag code is hate to see them coming, because sometimes you've got the Trump flag over the American flag and the Confederate flag over the American flag. And it's crazy, because you know, we're in this space and time where we are on the cusp of like great advancement. I mean great advancement. And so, um, ai is taking off, like the productivity of ai is huge, like all these things, man, and you would think that we are getting to a point to where, uh, americans have, hey, look, we've got all this advancement that is possible for us. How are we going to manage it? What are we going to do? Right, but we're still just trotting along, going backwards.
Speaker 1:And so you know, when you think about what's happening, you know when you think about what's happening, you know with the so-called you know Patriot Purity Act and giving the you know Homeland Security expanded powers. And you know Florida mandating loyalty oaths for schools, and you know, you've got you know red states putting Bibles back in the classroom. But taking out Tony Morrison, I mean you would think that it would be met with some resistance and it absolutely has. Like, so, all over the country we've had the no kings protest, and so I say that because the title of this episode is no Kings or Conquerors, it's kind of a play on King the Conqueror Right.
Speaker 1:And so we've got this entire resistance where millions of people showed up to march and protest about the moves of what seems to be an onset of a fascist regime here in the States. On June 14th it was Flag Day. Trump's birthday also was on June 14th and he threw himself this kind of gaudy Kim Jong-un style parade and nobody showed up. Imagine you spend $45 million on a birthday party and nobody comes Right. And so obviously the spin was was pretty amazing. It was like, yeah, this was the largest attended you know parade in American history. And obviously we saw the pictures and it wasn't. And it was kind of weird because you could see the protests coming from inside of the parade, like you had soldiers who were just kind of out there skipping and marching. They weren't even in unison, they wasn't even marching in cadence and you could see like nobody wanted to be there. But it's these type small resistance that are happening right now in the country because of where we are. I mean, you know we've got you know, a lot of celebrities and people who are pulling up there. Mark Ruffalo was at some of the events, you know the Hulk was there.
Speaker 1:But you know we've got examples of this like that run into the comic space, right, the, you know independent creators you know, like Kill your Darlings and Image, and they tackle the weaponization of childhood innocence. Splicers, explore control and conformity in dystopian environments. You know you got the Berserker poetry of madness leaned into military trauma and indoctrination, and then Bitterroot came back with, you know, a Harlem resistance and magical realism, and so you've got a lot of things that are parallel in the comic books, that are parallel in what's happening here, you know, in society and that are parallel in what's happening here, um, you know in in society, uh, and that's what we aim to bring. I know a lot of folks will look at this and say, man, that's, that's a kind of a stretch, but it's really not. It's really not.
Speaker 1:If you think about what comics have done over the last um, you know, century, century and a a half, comics has been what has told the tale. Comics has been what has really been the bell ringer of popular culture. You've got a lot of folks out there who are resisting. You've got a lot of cities, black mayors all over the country. I know black mayors all over the country. I know black mayors all over the country said, hey, look, we're going to have to take our people, we're gonna have to protect our people.
Speaker 1:So now, with this onslaught coming on from the federal government, local and municipal and state governments have to buck up, right, um, and so you know it's, it's, this is where it, it meets the. You know the the rubber meets the road. This is where, like, the immovable object meets the irresistible force, and A lot of people are going to be caught in the collateral damage. Right, it's kind of like when you know, superman and Zod have this battle above Metropolis, like they're trying to subdue each other, but everybody else gets hurt in the process. They're invulnerable, right, they punch each other through buildings and all this other stuff, but it's the guy on the ground who ends up getting killed because a building falls on them. And you know, the way this has come about is we, as municipal leaders and state leaders, have to be able to limit the collateral damage of this seemingly amped up, empowered federal government. Now, the irony of all this is that this is supposed to be a conservative government. Right, this is supposed to be a government. That is small government. It's what you hear all the time small government, small government. We're going to return all the power back to the states and actually what it's doing is it is limiting the state.
Speaker 1:Right here in north carolina, uh, democrats had a resounding victory in no in november in the election, sweeping the council of state. They won everything. Right, they won the governor, the, the lieutenant governor, the secretary of education, attorney general, um secretary of state, like all. They want, all the, the major offices here in the state of north carolina. But unfortunately, because you have a super majority in the in the general assembly, senate and majorities in the house, they're able to strip away the inherent powers, the constitutionally granted powers of the council of state members here and hand them over to a elected um council of state member who happens to be a republican the only one. So it's like you take the powers of it's like an absolute. It's like what happens in absolute power. Right, you took all the power out of the metahumans and transferred them into an amazor robot. So you've got this one guy who was a state auditor, who now has powers that are normally reserved for the governor and lieutenant governor and the secretary of state and the attorney general and secretary of education. Like you, you've got this one guy who now finds himself with an infinity gauntlet and he doesn't know what to do, but he's being controlled by another powerful force. And so when you get to a certain degree, uh, in politics it gets comical. It gets comical like it gets super villain-esque, like it gets comical.
Speaker 1:And this is where we are now, because you know, you think about some of these things that you would never, ever thought you'd see in American politics. It looks like what you would see in a comic book, right, you see these, you know these rich, desperate billionaires who are attempting to take over the world and they're forming their own party. Elon musk now is falling out with trump and he says well, you know, the republicans aren't going to do what I demand from them. I want to form my own party, the america party. Okay, good luck with that.
Speaker 1:You know, third party politics hasn't necessarily been a winner In America. It has been a spoiler. Now let's get that right. It has been a spoiler, but it hasn't been a winner. And so if Elon Musk, who has all the money in the world literally richest man on the planet, worth something like $450 or $60 billion if he wants to launch his third party vanity project, let him go on. But there is going to be carnage because if he can amass enough support, then he can play spoiler in future elections, sowing chaos, and so that's a lot to take in. I know you guys are like, damn, that's a lot to take in, but it's a lot to take in because there's a lot happening. But you all have the power, you as listeners, you as voters, you all have the, the power.
Speaker 1:Like you know, we're not powerless now, I know sometimes it feels like that, but we're not powerless. I mean, we certainly are not. I mean, and you know, we're going to get caught up sometimes in these. You know these attacks as collateral damage between these two titans, this billionaire on billionaire civil war. We're going to get caught up between, you know, lex Luthor and Phony Stark. We're going to get caught up between, you know, lex luther and phony stark. We're gonna get caught up in those things, but we're not powerless.
Speaker 1:The only way we can lose our power is not. It can't be taken from us, like, you know, amanda waller did with, uh, the amazor robots in absolute power. It can't be taken from us, but we can surrender it. You know, if we decide that we're not going to show up, uh, to elections, if we're not going to show up, uh, to city hall, if we're not going to show up, uh and vote, if we're not going to stand up for our neighbors, uh, who we've known our whole lives, uh, who just happen to be undocumented, if we're not going to show up, if we're not going to be up, if we're not going to be heroes, then we give up our power, we surrender our powers, and that's what they want.
Speaker 1:The reason why they're so terrified of implementing the big, beautiful bullshit bill is because they know what's going to happen. They know people are going to get hurt and they know those people are going to reclaim their power. And so we have to make sure that we continue to educate everyone, because a lot of people did not know that the health care that they are receiving is Medicare Medicaid. They didn't. They didn't know that why? Because it was called something else. If you think about what's what's happening with our health care system and the Affordable Care Act, think about what's happening with our healthcare system and the Affordable Care Act. A lot of people didn't even realize that Obamacare, which they hate, is the Affordable Care Act, which they love, and so being able to obscure and hide the information from people has caused them to vote against their interests. And we see that everywhere. We see that in this entire debate that we have going on, because you have a master manipulator and a very, very motivated group of villains who are coming for the freedoms that you hold dear, and it's like, oh well, don't be hyperbolic. No, no, no, no. This is not being hyperbolic, this is being realistic, like you tell the truth about what you're facing, and so you know.
Speaker 1:Just wanted to welcome you guys back and just catch you up on everything that's been happening since we last were together in October. What am I reading right now? Let's transition as we get ready to close this episode out. I talked about Era of Apocalypse, marvel's X-Men. We've got, uh, trinity special they're still the blood hunt, uh. We've got the absolute universe. Uh, that's happening right now.
Speaker 1:Uh, if you guys are not uh reading, uh, the superman comic right now. You've got doomsday back. You got a couple of versions of doomsday. One, uh, is the king of hell doomsday, the other is time trapper doomsday back. You got a couple of versions of Doomsday. One is the King of Hell Doomsday, the other is Time Trapper Doomsday. And you're about to have this major crossover between the Absolute Universe and you guys should really be reading Absolute Superman, absolute Batman, absolute Wonder Woman, absolute Flash you should be reading all those. But they're about to have a crossover with the main universe in DC and it's going to be pretty epic. Also, like I said, you've got Ironheart that's on Disney plus, and you've got Superman, who is about to drop in a couple of days with the reboot of the DCU, and James Gunn. So a lot of stuff going on.
Speaker 1:But I wanted to just get back to you guys and try to get a regular cadence back. You guys know how busy I am, but you also know how much I love you. You know how much I love what I do here at Superhero Politics Podcast. So subscribe you can find us anywhere, obviously, you know. But also go check us out on tiktok man. We're we're trying to do this whole tiktok thing, uh, and youtube thing and we really would appreciate you guys, uh, subscribing and following us there, trying to get our community larger and so, um, it's going to be a lot more content posted there. There's going to be a lot more lives. You know, we went live on TikTok the other day. We had a thousand people on and so really want you guys to be part of the journey.
Speaker 1:And I know sometimes it'll seem like fits and starts and sometimes I'll be here and I'll be away. Guys, I'm really out here working in these streets to try to make a better world for the people of High Point, but also make a better world for the people of America, and so you know, I'm on a federal advocacy board. I have a chance to travel over the country and talk about some of the things that I'm doing in terms of policy. Talk about some of the things that I'm doing in terms of policy. I'm leading a federal workforce program that is trying to get folks into the clean energy workforce, which is part of a major announcement here in North Carolina of the largest job creation vehicle in the history of the state of North Carolina, which is also a new form of travel with a single wing, very energy efficient um airplane that's going to be manufactured here by jet zero. So I've got a lot of things on the on the burner. My company's growing well, you know, my kids are about to go off to college and about to be empty nester.
Speaker 1:So, guys, please forgive me if I'm not as regular in podcasting as I want to be, but I'm going to dedicate my time. Hopefully I can carve out Sundays to be able to upload the new episodes and so you'll be able to find them on YouTube. You'll be able to stream them everywhere. But, guys, thanks for locking in with me. I appreciate you, but there are people out there who need you and you are not powerless. Know that you are not powerless, but if you think you can't, just remember what we say here at superhero politics you don't have to be a superhuman to be a super human. Until next time. This is michael holmes superhero politics. We back.
