“We can fight our way back into the light. We can climb out of hell one inch at a time…Either we heal now, as a team, or we die as individuals”
--Al Pacino, Any Given Sunday
Jane Craighead George is credited with first saying that everyone has their own superpower, and pundits have been writing for a decade or more about what that is for Donald Trump. He has been described in all sorts of terms over the years from courageous to criminal, heroic to hard-nosed, arrogant to unassuming, and everything in between. He seems to be the very definition of Winston Churchill's description of “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” With his Cabinet choices and his renewed expressions of a commitment to American values (are you listening Hamas and Iran?), he seems to be the right man at the right time to lead this country back from the dregs that it has been experiencing over the last two decades since Obama, especially during the authoritarian Biden regime.
But I don’t think that Trump’s superpower is his policies or personnel choices per se. Rather, I believe that his real gift is how he inspires ordinary people to do extraordinary things. He is an example of life imitating art as he somehow manages to encourage others to be more courageous versions of themselves. Like Mel Gibson in Braveheart, Trump won because he saw “a whole army of my countrymen, here, in defiance of tyranny.”
We all recognize that this country radically changed over the last few decades as the proponents of cultural Marxism strove to indoctrinate this nation with a different value system. Our country’s consciousness was shifted by Obama and his acolytes, who for eight years pursued their stated goal of trying to transform this nation. Racism became part of the gestalt of the United States; victim consciousness became the norm; education was replaced with indoctrination; and the United States began to truly decline. The Biden administration was merely Obama 2.0, and an attempt to further this decline. But in between those two demagogues, Trump stood up for Americans over an elitist swamp. Despite non-stop attacks on him from all sides, he led this country into a time of peace and prosperity. Without relying on the upside-down values of DEI, he demonstrated, and is again demonstrating with his new Cabinet choices, an appreciation of meritocracy. But one man cannot change a culture by himself, and it is here that we see what Trump’s gift truly is.
Trump inspires. He is a lightning rod, and while he inspires an unmatched hatred in those who prefer a status quo of authoritarianism, he also inspires truly courageous actions on the part of normal people. This is his superpower.
For a number of years, Americans have been told that we must accept the truly bizarre concept of gender fluidity. In an attempt to destroy values and culture, the leftist elite have tried to convince the world that if a man feels like a woman, he should be treated as a woman and vice versa. According to DSM-5 (the official manual of the American Psychiatric Assoc. published in 2013), between two and fourteen people per 100,000 actually experience gender dysphoria. 0.002 – 0.014 percent. That’s it. Yet, the leftist establishment would have us believe that it is the “norm.” American culture under Biden has been pushing this agenda in sports, politics, business, and in every facet of life as if gender dysphoria is what we should all strive for, God forbid. We have been told repeatedly that if we do not accept it as the norm, we are discriminatory and evil.
But every sensible person has always recognized that this is blatantly untrue. While we certainly need to be compassionate for those people who suffer from this dysfunction, all of human history has accepted that a man is a man and a woman is a woman. No matter what anyone tries to do, humanity is incapable of changing Y chromosomes to X chromosomes. But because of the fear of retaliation, people have been quiet during the craziness of the last four years.
Thanks to the inspiration of Donald Trump, people began fighting back over the last year and a half. Led by Riley Gaines, many refused to accept Will Thomas as a female athlete. NCAA women's volleyball teams started to choose to forfeit games rather than play against men who disguise themselves as women. This past month, a California 16 year old high school athlete called out the craziness of gender fluidity in women’s athletics before the Riverside Unified School District Board meeting. She expressed the feelings of the majority of this nation when she told of her disgust at having a LGBTQalphabet agenda thrust down their throats, and how it was destroying their lives as teenagers. Trump's commitment to common sense has inspired a backlash against the craziness of this gender dysphoria movement.
Trump has always been recognized as a supporter of Israel, and respectful of Judaism. Most people see the manifestation of this through his moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, the capital of Israel; and through the creation of the Abraham Accords. But what was left largely unnoticed during Trump's first Administration was how he protected young Jews throughout this country by including anti-Semitism in Title VI protections. It is exclusively because of this action that college students who were persecuted last spring on campuses around the country are now winning lawsuit after lawsuit against their universities. While many Jewish college students were stunned into passivity during the riots last spring, Trump's response to the assassination attempt in July has inspired Jewish groups around the country to be more active and clear in their responses to anti-Semitism. Jewish clubs on campuses like UCLA were being forced to produce their events off campus. But now they are reaching out to local Republican groups and Jewish supporters to have the funding to not only survive but grow their participation levels. Seeing Donald Trump fight back against the establishment swamp has inspired them to stand up for their own rights as Americans.
Melania Trump is the epitome of a powerful woman who integrates strength and beauty with dignity. Her husband, while accused of misogyny by so many leftists, has actually repeatedly demonstrated himself as a man committed to ignoring gender by surrounding himself with the best people, regardless of sex. While Biden made hire after hire based upon identity rather than quality (why would anyone hire KJP or “Rachel” Levine except for their sexual identities), Trump is surrounding himself with the best people he can. Susie Wiles will be the first female Chief of Staff in history; and she will be surrounded by amazing women like Pam Bondi, Elise Stefanik, Kristi Noem, and more. Women who resonate powerful female energy as opposed to misanthropic extremist feminists who would rather destroy feminine power and replace it with androgyny. This is already becoming reflected in high schools and colleges as young women are taking leadership positions as women… as opposed to trying to be gender fluid or androgynous. At Columbia, where anti-Semitism is rampant, a female Israeli student is now the President of the Student Body. I don't know whether she is a supporter of President Trump or not, but her courage in running as a Jewish woman is a direct reflection of the inviting atmosphere and inspiration that Trump has caused.
And then there are the people of faith. Although he claimed to be a Catholic, Joe Biden denied the principles and practices of Catholicism with every action he has done. His betrayal of Israel, his commitment to abortion, his public disdain for the sacred holiday of Easter and renaming Easter 2024 as a “Day of Transgender Visibility” in direct contradiction to Catholic theology are just a few examples of his betrayal of people of religious faith. Donald Trump on the other hand, has embraced religious traditions and their leaders fully. On the anniversary of October 7th, he said prayers with Orthodox Jews at the grave of a Jewish leader. He posted a Catholic prayer on the holiday of the Feast of St. Michael. And Trump has repeatedly given credit to God for saving his life at Butler. While rejected during the Obama and Biden years, God is once again welcomed in the Trump White House.
This commitment to God is being reflected throughout our culture, thanks to the example of our President-elect. For years I have heard people say that they are “spiritual,” but not religious. In the last six months I have more and more heard people of that non-denominational theology say that they deeply believe in God, but are not attached to a faith per se. This is demonstrative of a willingness to embrace God rather than deny Him and just call themselves “spiritual,” and again is a mirror of Trump’s willingness to openly speak of God.
During the Obama years, as well as during Biden's regime, there was a commitment to make anyone whom they disagreed with into an enemy. Either you supported them, or you were evil. This became reflected in our culture as people more and more forgot the quality of being able to disagree without being disagreeable. But with Trump's example, we are starting to see people who have been at each other's throats for years begin to have dialogue with each other. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in Trump's nominations. Eight years ago, there was a bitter feud between Trump and Rubio; now Rubio will be becoming our Secretary of State. Bobby Kennedy was a direct competitor with Trump, and now has become his partner in making America healthy again. Over and over, Donald Trump has turned enemies into allies. Again, we are starting to see this in our society as people start to have dialogue again.
Different people have called Trump courageous, cantankerous, kind, brutal, and every name, good and bad that can be found in the dictionary. But like any of the inspiring heroes of film, his real strength lies in his ability to inspire through example, and to help people become the heroes of their own stories. It is this quality that has inspired the devotion of so many MAGA supporters, and it is his commitment to this power of influencing individuals to excel that will lead the nation back to greatness.
Maybe his ability to influence others to create a better America and world can be summed up again with a quote from an epic film that could even be used at his inauguration: “This day does not belong to one man, but to all. Let us together rebuild this world, that we may share in the days of peace.”
