There was a moment in the 2020 presidential campaign when someone created a meme of Trump as Thanos with the line "I am inevitable" attached. Now, anyone who saw the damned movie and knew anything about pop culture would realize what a glorious self-own this was.
A) Thanos was the villain, and what's more he was almost a caricature of a militant leftist eco-terrorist.
B) Thanos was NOT, in fact, inevitable, as he dies almost seconds after that line.
C) Thanos was literally fighting CAPTAIN AMERICA.
But you see this all the time with Rightists who appropriate the villain as a hero. In fact, Putin just created Rings of Power that he gave to his cronies. If you have any memory of Lord of the Rings, that basically makes him Sauron. And - in case you forgot - Sauron was the villain...who lost. What makes the irony deeper is that Ukrainians have been referring to Russians as orcs since the invasion began.
There's this weird impulse to become the villain, maybe because it's "pwning the libtards." We've seen it in Elon Musk's embrace of some of the worst people on the internet. Why do that? Why actively pretend (or not even pretend) to be a villain? Why revel in other's disgust and discomfort?
In describing Trumpism, Adam Serwer issued one of those bon mots that resonates because of the deep truth revealed in a few simple words: "The cruelty is the point." While that was certainly true of Trump, it seems to be part of the glib, online Right's persona as well. Other people calling you a troll or a misogynist is just a sign that you're "edgier" or "tougher" than the "snowflake" who's pointing out that you're just an awful person.
The willing blindness to the obvious messages in pop culture are part of a deeper blindness for cultural standards. The "left" is presumed to be the "culture warriors" yet it is the Right that can't put down their cudgels and pikes.
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