Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark:

If you were expecting Triumph of the Will, you were disappointed because what you got instead was fat, disoriented Elvis stumbling through his set. Except that it wasn’t funny. It was dangerous.

I promise you that the flag officers in attendance were more alarmed than amused. And you should be, too.

1. “The Enemy from Within”

President Trump did not have many bad things to say about America’s foreign adversaries. He spoke about Vladimir Putin in largely neutral terms (only saying he was “disappointed” in him) and barely mentioned China.

He did, however, speak with great moral clarity about certain classes of Americans whom he views as a grave threat:

• The American left: “They’re really bad. They’re bad people.” Again, he’s talking about Americans here.

• His own domestic political opponents: “They’re vicious people that we have to fight, just like you have to fight vicious people. Mine are a different kind of vicious.”

• American journalists: “sleazebags.”

• Residents of American inner cities: “animals.”

I fit three out of four of those categories. I also support LGBTQ rights and DEI, which Trump and his supporters have declared war on.

“I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.”
— General William Tecumseh Sherman

They have declared war on 1/3 to 1/2 of the American population: Three of our largest cities plus San Francisco, the residents of America’s inner cities in particular, LGBTQ people, women, nonwhite people, the American Left and all Trump’s political opponents.

He’s 100% hero, lives by the Scout oath (trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent¹), loves his fellow humans and is never even tempted by evil.

I’ve never liked Batman, because he seems to me to be on the edge of being a supervillain himself. On the other hand, a friend who is a deep comics fan once said I was doing Batman a disservice. Batman, he said, has all those qualities I love in Superman, but Batman is in a bad mood about it. Superman loves humanity because of our capacity for good, while Batman sees the capacity for good and is angry that so many of us choose evil.

Looking at online reviews of this year’s “Superman” movie, I’m surprised that many people say they’d never seen a good Superman movie before, or that this was the first good Superman movie they’d seen. I guess the Christopher Reeve Superman is lost to the mists of prehistory.

Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day:

The MAGA movement needs violence and intimidation to function, both online and off. Without its central bundle of grievances and universe of enemies — LGBT people, people of color, leftists, Democrats — Trump’s supporters might notice that he’s ransacking the country’s institutions and making their lives worse. So they can’t acknowledge that a decade inside the pressure cooker of political violence has turned Trump supporters in spree shooters in waiting.