Much like the Sequels, there’s no long term plot for this war so bringing back familiar characters is easier on the audience. I expect to find out Soleimani survived and now has a pair of bionic legs.

It’s how we got Rambo III.

Billionaire sex predators are out of reach for most Americans to take direct action against. Display boards with inaccurate historical information and statues dedicated to the shitbags of history are easy to vandalize. Confederates have been crying about that second part for decades. And I’d imagine a fair amount of Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway signs already have bullet holes in them. It won’t thwart what they’re trying to do but you fight the battle by whatever means you have available.

There’s a reason they quit teaching “John Brown’s Guide to Protest Etiquette” in schools and told us peacefully standing on the side of the road for an hour (after securing all the necessary permits) and cooperating with all directives from law enforcement is how Americans “make themselves heard”. They hear us, and they know they don’t have to listen.

There are, and like any social/political group it’s not a monolith but has plenty of various subsections that would broadly be called “anarchist” but aren’t themselves all in agreement (and at times accuse others of not being “real” anarchists). This watered down meme is just [insert political group here] Utopianism jingoism. Of course people tend to help each other that are like them, leftists tend to be more likely to help outside their tribal communities, but the extent to how much they help and under what circumstances is not blind enabling. If I see a person drowning I’m not going to ask who they voted for before helping. If I see some Trumper with a flat tire… fix it yourself, asshole.

I am no expert in theology either but I am a comic book/sci fi/fantasy nerd. The source material for any good work of fiction is just that; source material. Later authors can use it as a frame work for their version but frequently retcon any inconsistencies with the original. Think of Trumpageddon like A New Hope: Special Edition. Instead of God shooting first now Donnie does.

They’ll pass any loss on to the American people, whether that’s jacking up prices or the government bailing them out with our tax dollars. What remains to be seen is just how much his average supporters will tolerate and justify until the cost to them becomes unbearable. I hope more nations follow this lead; cut us off or get him to cut your nation off, strangle us economically and make us a pariah on the global stage. His loyalists and bots and foreign bad actors may be a loud minority on the internet, but they’re still a minority and getting a free pass to be a western male chauvinist isn’t going to keep party-line voters content when their businesses fail, their mortgages default, and their kids start dying in Iran.

My evangelical parents got wrapped up in this line of thinking in the 90s right around the time teenage me was becoming disillusioned with the indoctrination I’d been raised in. Classic “end of the Millennium” fears and the hope they could jumpstart Armageddon convinced them to send money to Christian charities who supposedly then paid to move poor Jewish people in former Soviet states to Israel. Sure God was going to destroy the Earth in 10000 years, but oops, guess y’all forced his hand!

There’s enough distrust and conspiracy theorist in me to question if the whole thing isn’t a good cop/bad cop publicity stunt to attract “conscientious” consumers.

“Hey all you anti-authoritarian, anti-AI, anti-surveillance types, we’re your friend; we’re the un-AI. Now be good idiots and plot your dissent on our service.”