Where Was Batman?

Where was Batman?  Superman?  Or Wonder Woman, for that matter?  You would have thought that at least Spiderman  might have turned up to defend the US Capitol Building from marauding fascists.  I feel terribly let down by the superhero no-show yesterday.  Clearly, popular culture has been lying to me all my life - it had led me to believe that whenever truth and justice were threatened, men (and women) in capes would turn up to set things right.  Damn it, not even Captain America, the very embodiment of American values, representing all that is good and great about the US, couldn't be bothered to turn up when his country was truly in need.  Yesterday's events in Washington DC were so serious that even The Fonz was moved to use Twitter to call for President Trump - the instigator of the attempted insurrection - to be executed by communist partisans and his body strung up, (he tweeted that Trump was like Mussolini and that his tenure should end the same way).  God bless Henry Winkler.  I mean, things are so bad that The Fonz loses his legendary cool, yet Batman is nowhere to be seen.  To be fair, we did have Micheal Keaton tweeting some pretty tough anti-Trump rhetoric, calling for the insurrectionists to be dealt with appropriately.  For a moment I hoped that perhaps he might follow this up by leaping into his Batmobile, (which I'm sure he kept after his eighties Batman films), driving it up the steps of the Capitol, before leaping out, dressed in his Batsuit (which he has probably been trying on prior to his rumoured return to the role), and beating up random Nazis.

In what had already been a weird week, what with former Bond girl Tanya Roberts dying, coming back to life, then dying again, yesterday's assault on democracy by a bunch of fascists, acting at the out going President's behest, just tipped things over the edge.  If this is how 2021 starts, how much weirder is it going to get?  But, to be serious - because this is a serious situation - what happened yesterday epitomises just why I have such disdain for conspiracy theories and those who nurture and spread them.  They poison the political discourse, their drip-drip-drip of poison into the ears of those vulnerable to them eventually divorcing from all rationality.  They undermine the very idea of objective truth, the concept that there are facts we accept as true.  They destroy the communal values upon which our societies are built.  Their insidious rewriting of history, regardless of the existence of evidence which contradicts them, warps the perceptions of their followers to the point that they become trapped in a crazed alternate reality in which the truth becomes a conspiracy against them. Within hours of yesterday's events, social media was already awash with nascent new conspiracy theories claiming that it wasn't really Trump's fascist army storming the capitol, but Antifa infiltrators pretending to be Nazis and white supremacists in order to discredit Trump and his scumbag followers.  This, despite the fact that the arseholes caught on camera committing acts of domestic terrorism were clearly identifiable from their social media profiles as long established right-wing extremists.  Really, this is madness.

Which brings me to my main point: if you are one of those people still buying into these conspiracy theories, if you are one of those people still supporting Trump, or believing that the election was rigged, then please, please seek psychiatric help now.  I'm not joking.  Really, I'm absolutely serious.  If you are still believing all this conspiracy shit then you are ill.  Mentally ill.  You need help.  It isn't your fault.  You couldn't help it.  You were abused.  You have to accept that Donald Trump is not your friend.  He never has been.  He is an evil old man who has poisoned your mind.  He has effectively groomed you, making you all sorts of promises while, all the time, feeding you lies in order to warp your mind so that you do his bidding.  But it isn't too late.  You can still get help and I urge you to do so.  Really.  I'm not joking, this isn't satire.  You need help.  Equally, if you are one of those people who has helped to disseminate the harmful conspiracy theories that Trump et al have peddled, or are one of those who have used a public platform, be it a blog, podcast or social media, to give such theories credence, you need to take a long hard look at yourself - and seek help.  Do it now.  Do not hesitate.  You are sick, you need help.  But don't worry, there are people out there who can help you.  I urge you to step back from the abyss and seek them out.