When the Villains Make More Sense

We used to cheer for the government. Or at least that’s the version Hollywood kept feeding us.

The formula was simple: America good, enemies bad. The threats were always external — aliens, terrorists, rogue hackers — while the brave agents of truth, justice, and democracy raced to protect the hallowed halls of power: the Capitol, the White House, the Supreme Court. These weren’t just buildings; they were cinematic shorthand for freedom itself.

That story doesn’t play quite the same anymore.

In Independence Day, aliens reduce the White House to smoldering rubble. It was meant to shock us — the ultimate violation, the desecration of America’s very heart. We were supposed to mourn.

In Live Free or Die Hard, hackers stage the destruction of Congress, igniting national panic. The very idea that someone might topple these institutions was presented as apocalyptic.

In Designated Survivor, terrorists finally do it — vaporizing Congress, assassinating the President, wiping out the entire chain of command, leaving a lone cabinet member holding the shredded remains of the republic.

We were meant to recoil. To be outraged. And for a long time, I was.

But now? I’m not so sure anymore.

Because, let’s be brutally honest: who exactly are the heroes supposed to be in 2025?

• When Congress caters more to corporate donors than actual voters…
• When Supreme Court justices hobnob with billionaires and turn the bench into an auction house…
• When the White House spits out authoritarian talking points while draping itself in flags and cheap patriotism…

…it gets a little harder to root for the people frantically trying to prop up this diseased system. The villains? At least they’re honest about what they are.

And before anyone decides to deliberately misread this: I am absolutely, unequivocally NOT advocating violence. Not remotely. Not hypothetically. Not metaphorically. Not now, not ever.

The answer to our political rot isn’t some Hollywood fantasy of bombs, bullets, or insurrections. That path leads exactly where you’d expect — into full-blown authoritarianism. Violence, no matter how righteous anyone may convince themselves it is, always empowers the very forces we need to resist.

But what I am saying — and what makes me deeply uncomfortable — is how disturbingly easy it’s become to emotionally identify with the fictional forces of disruption. To watch those once-outrageous plotlines and think: I get it.

Because Hollywood never really dared to explore what happens when the rot isn’t foreign. When it’s not some shadowy hacker cell or alien invasion, but the people already inside the building. The ones who swore oaths to protect the Constitution — and then proceed to dismantle it from within.

• When ICE morphs into a de facto secret police.
• When military units are deployed on American streets to confront peaceful citizens.
• When infants are thrown into detention camps, reporters are assaulted for doing their jobs, and dissent itself becomes a prosecutable offense.

At some point you have to stop and ask: who’s the villain now?

I used to watch those movies and instinctively cheer for the agents and generals scrambling to stop the plot. Now? I watch and wonder whether the plot was really the problem — or whether it’s the system being so desperately preserved that deserves scrutiny.

We’re living through a collapse in public faith — not because of conspiracies or foreign propaganda, but because of what’s openly happening, day after day, on live television. You don’t need hackers or aliens to burn the place down. We’ve got people in expensive suits, waving flags and quoting scripture while gutting the rule of law in plain sight.

Maybe the screenwriters weren’t bold enough. Maybe they couldn’t quite bring themselves to imagine that the real threat wouldn’t wear a mask, or speak in a foreign accent, but would come smiling, draped in red, white, and blue, telling us everything is fine as they set the house on fire.

And yet — in those movies — the story never ends with the villains winning.

It ends when someone stands up.

When ordinary people decide that enough is enough. When complacency finally gives way to courage.

In Live Free or Die Hard, Lucy McClane looks Matt Farrell dead in the eye and says:

"You're going to need to dig deep and find a bigger set of balls before this is over."

Well, America — so do we.

Because this story isn’t finished. Not yet. But if we don’t find some guts — peaceful, relentless, unflinching guts — the closing credits are going to roll on the country we used to believe we were.