Maybe it was the birther thing this month, or the birther thing coming back this month, that made me think of Obama's famous riff that he was really born on Krypton.
Maybe it was the promo pics from beginning production on Man of Steel on the geek websites.
Maybe it was Superman renouncing U.S. Citizenship in Action Comics 900, just as Obama had a press conference to reiterate his.
But, it's made me combine a bunch of ideas in my head, and I think that Trump reinforces one of Obama's most successful memes ... that of Obama as Superman.
Because even though we often chide the President for not cracking down on plutocracy, he's come back occasionally to his affinity for the New Deal Era's most famous contribution to Pop Culture, the Last Son of Krypton.
And the New Deal Superhero's most famous nemesis is an insane plutocrat with a bad hairpiece, who tries time and again to turn the people against the alien Kal-El, the sometimes crafty and sometimes harebrained-loony but always sociopathic Lex Luthor.
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Young Obama liked Supes because he was All-American but with parentage abroad, someone who is Kansan and literally alien at the same time. The hero's quest (or one of them) is to find out more about who he is ... to track down fragmentary info about a distant and seemingly magical father. Yet, Clark Kent is also the product of his adopted parents (and Obama's grandparents did serve such a role), arguably more than he is a product of Kryptonian ability, culture, or science.
Obama posed in front of the Superman statue while in Metropolis, Kansas on the Presidential campaign trail. It was not geeky fascination. It was political theatre.
Superman is a savior figure, a figure of renewal, a symbol of the New Deal protecting the little guy from the greedy and the criminal. Up against the Bush years, this country was looking for such a figure.
When Obama is in front of audiences with some geeks in them, he'll sometimes allude to his love of Superman and comics. John Hodgeman roasted the President magnificently for this pandering two years ago, at the Congressional Correspondents' Dinner.
And at the Catholic Politicians' Dinner in 2008, Obama told jokes about how the birthers would soon find out he is really from Krypton, and his real father is Jor-El. It turned things upside down that week, although it was quickly forgotten.
Trump reinforces this meme. He is the quintessential stock villain plutocrat, just like Lex Luthor.
Luthor is bald, as is Trump. Luthor sometimes wears an awful hairpiece, as does Trump.
Luthor puts his name on everything he owns. Check.
Luthor talks about being a titan of industry, but he often cheats, and he inherited every aspect of LuthorCorp from the real self-made man, Lionel Luthor.
Check.
Luthor is denigrating of difference, particularly when it concerns Kal-El, alien heroes, and the Justice League Unlimited.
Trump's TV show looks like a minstrel production at times, and he regularly assumes that people who are different than himself have no real contributions to the nation ... if they aren't undermining it entirely.
Luthor ran for President (and won!) in DC Comics in the year 2000. He ran on false populism and unenforceable malignant narcissistic bullying as a platform.
Check.
Luthor thinks he is entitled to what he pilfers. His hatred of Superman is partially fueled by his bewilderment that an actual superman would not be an Objectivist.
Check.
I'd be curious to see what else the community can come up with. But there are other similarities I'm sure.
Obama profits from this convergence, because if we point out how the GOP is actually about to nominate a real-life Lex Luthor, it reinforces that we have Superman in our corner.
And they will nominate Lex Luthor, because why not go for the ultimate Objectivist? Ayn Rand's chickens have come home to roost at LuthorCorp HQ, or as we know it in the real world, Trump Tower.