I Have a Dream, By any Means Necessary

Nobody trusts anybody right now and that is not just a “vibes” problem, it is a survival problem for a democracy. We step into the uncomfortable truth behind America’s political polarization and ask why every headline feels like a warning shot, why every election feels rigged, and why unity talk keeps landing like an insult instead of a solution. Using superhero storytelling as a tool, we connect real-world power to the X-Men’s most enduring conflict: Professor X versus Magneto. 

We break down the competing American visions of change by pairing MLK with Professor X and Malcolm X with Magneto. One strategy leans on moral conscience and bridge building; the other confronts systems, incentives, and raw power. Then we get specific about what manufactures “Magneto energy” in real life: economic insecurity, wage stagnation, community decline, AI anxiety, and the identity loss that pushes people toward scapegoats. We also talk about why Democrats can get trapped defending institutions people no longer trust, why MAGA politics runs on reaction and fear, and why you cannot build unity on top of mistrust. 

Finally, we dig into what it means when leaders damage public institutions and election confidence, and why protecting voting rights and restoring institutional credibility matters as much as any speech. If you want less radicalization, we argue for rebuilding the foundation: workforce skills, real opportunity, and security that reduces the need for enemies. Subscribe, share this with a friend who argues politics nonstop, and leave a review with your take: are you building bridges, applying pressure, or both?

Transcript

Two Visions Of How Change Happens

The Dream Versus Power Reality

The Economic Engine Of Radicalization

MAGA Fear And Liberal Blind Spots

When Leaders Break Public Institutions

Why Speeches Cannot Fix Power

Choose Coexistence Or Separation

What To Do Next And Closing

SPEAKER_00 0:28

What's going on, family? Welcome back to superhero politics, where we break down the real world through the lens of superheroes, power, and truth. If you've been rocking with me, you already know this is where comics meet culture, where politics gets real. And if you're new here, this isn't your tip, this isn't your typical political show. We don't do talking points, we do truth. So whether you're a first-time listener or a part of the core audience, I'm glad you're here. Because today we're stepping into one of the most uncomfortable conversations in America. We are living in a moment where nobody trusts anybody. Not government, not media, not corporations, not even each other. Every election feels like the last stand, every headline feels like a warning shot. Every conversation feels like it could turn into an argument. And people keep asking, what's happening to the country? Why does it feel like we're coming apart instead of coming together? The truth is, this isn't new. It just feels new because now everybody can see it. Everybody has a camera. Everybody is a journalist. Everybody is an influencer. And so everything that you do and say is going to be captured by somebody. And so you have to always be watching because someone's always watching you. But this isn't new because America has always had two competing ideas of how change happens. And nothing splits that more than what we're going to talk about here today on superhero politics. Some of you in the past, if you listen to other episodes, you've heard me kind of touch on the dichotomy between the competing visions of America, right? You've heard me talk about how MLK and Martin Luther, MLK and Malcolm X, and how Professor X and Magneto, and how there's this dichotomy that runs between comics and politics. Very, very similar stuff, right? And so we're actually going to get into that a little bit today. And so when we talk about MLK vis-a-vis Malcolm X, and we also think about Professor X vis a vis Magneto, right? One of them said, I have a dream. And the other said, by any means necessary. One believed in the conscience of the country, the other believed in confronting the reality of power. Marvel, they didn't invent this conflict, but they did illustrate it. Professor X, Magneto. So the real question isn't who was right. It's what happens when a country ignores why both existed. And it feels like we are talking at each other instead of to each other, and we don't understand why we each on either side of this feel the way that we feel. Right? This is not history, though. This is now. Like we're we're not reliving this. Some people, I had an elder say to me that it feels like we're back in the 60s. Feels like we're back in the area of the civil rights. And I said, that's because we are. Right? This is now. Like every day there's a fight for civil rights. There's a there's a group that's being marginalized, there's a group that's being oppressed, there's a group that's having their history erased. Every single day that's happening. In the halls of Congress, in city halls, in state houses across America, in governors' mansions, all these things are happening to people right now. This is not 1964. This is not the Lyndon B. Johnson era. This is the 19, this is 19. This is not 19. I'm sorry. This is not 1960. This is 2026. I almost got caught up there. Uh this is 2026. And we're still dealing with this. We're dealing with this stuff right now, right? And unfortunately, this is the world that if we don't self-correct, we're gonna pass on to our kids. Um, this is not new division. It's the same argument. Just the stakes are higher. This is not about the 1960s, this is about right now, jobs, identity, power. Every moment spills and splits the same way. Those who believe the system can be fixed and those who believe the system is the problem. That split, that's where nations either evolve or they break. So let's talk about the dream. Dr. King believed in the moral conscience of America, right? Nonviolence wasn't weakness, it was pressure. Exposing justice so early, the country has to respond. That's Professor X. Right? Bill Bridges, right? Not walls. Appeal to humanity, coexist. The dream only works if the other side has a conscience. But then came the warning. That's Malcolm X and Magneto. Malcolm X looked at the same America and saw power. He saw systems, not intentions. He saw violence already happening, and Magneto says it plainly. If we talk about truths, there's an economic truth. We got to stop pretending this is cultural. This is economic and cultural, it's both of them. But factories left, wages stalled, communities hollowed out, and now AI is coming for everything. When people lose economic stability, they lose identity. And when people lose identity, they start looking for someone to blame. People don't radicalize over slogans, they radicalize when they feel replaced. Magneto isn't born, he's created by loss. So if you think about who Magneto was, right? This dude was a double survivor. He was a survivor of the Holocaust because he was born Jewish. And he was he was trying to stave off another Holocaust when it came to the extinction of his race of Homo superior or mutants. So there was very little chance that he was going to adopt the dream of Professor X. It just wasn't gonna happen. Two different experiences. But both sides, and this is the uncomfortable truth, both sides are right. And both sides are wrong. If we break this out into the political parties, right, if we separate this out into Republicans or Democrats, we start to talk about platforms. Right? We talk about heroes and villains and who is who on both sides. You know, it's clear when you talk about the X-Men versus the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, we that's clear, right? But if you're in a red state, if you're in Alabama, if you're in Mississippi versus New York or California, who's the hero and who's the villain sometimes ain't as clear-cut. So when Democrats talk about equity, they talk about equity while ignor ignoring the working class collapse. And this is across all races. This is not just across white working class people. This is this is black people, this is Hispanic people. As we go into this immigration debate right now, this is this is Hispanic uh immigrants. These are farm workers. It's collapsing for everybody. And then we look at our institutions. Nobody trusts anything anymore, and they're collapsing. And Democrats are defending the status quo of the institutions. We hear all the time. And I say this as a Democrat, as an elected Democrat. We have to start realizing that people don't trust the establishment. We have to realize that. And the more you defend institutions, the more you are seen as the establishment. And therefore, it's hard to earn trust. And so when we talk about the other side of this, though, MAGA wants to go back to a time where they felt like they had a place at the table. Now, the crazy part about this is no one has ever taken MAGA away from the table. Like, they they they don't. I mean, if you look at the demographics of MAGA of conservatives, of Republicans, they're white people. Just gonna call it what it is. They're white people. And white people still are 60 plus percent of the population here. White people still have uh control of every uh industry, every sector of our economy. They're the they're the primary lawmakers in the country on both sides of the aisle. So the idea that white people are being disenfranchised is ridiculous. But you can't overcome someone's perception because that perception is their reality. And so when they talk about taking their country back, they talk about the restoration, they talk about the nostalgia, but they don't offer solutions. They don't really have a solution on what they want to do and what it means to take the country back. So what happens? They weaponize fear. They weaponize the fear, and it doesn't fix the economics that are driving it. I'm watching every single day as farmers or going on TV talking about, man, I don't have workers. I don't have workers. Well, maybe your entire staff was undocumented immigrants or migrant workers, and now they're terrified because ice is roaming our streets. Like sentinels hunting for mutants. Maybe that's why, right? But you voted for this. This is what you asked for. And now you're lamenting the fact that it's destroying your livelihood, generations of what your family have built, because you chose to follow a demagogue. Because you've you chose not to look at this through the lens of your economic survival or advancement. You looked at it through the lens of suppressing what you felt was competition that was going to replace you. Both sides are arguing symptoms, and we're not solving the causes. We're not getting to the root cause. So let's be real. MAGA is not random, it's reaction. Demographic change, economic insecurity, loss of identity. That's not an excuse, but it is an explanation. So when we look at this from through the comic lens, and we're gonna bounce back and forth in between, guys, you know how this works. Magneto doesn't trust humans. MAGA doesn't trust institutions. You cannot build unity on top of distrust. So the idea that we're gonna get both these sides to come together and sing Kubaya is ridiculous. Why? Because they don't trust each other. You can't build unity on top of mistrust. And so, when we look at this in the comics and what they got right about it, right? Marvel shows us where this goes. Fear becomes persecution, persecution becomes resistance, resistance becomes conflict, and eventually separation starts to feel safer than coexistence. That's not fiction, that's a warning. We see it right now. Politicians keep saying we need unity. But unity without justice is submission. And that's what MAGA feels. MAGA feels like they're being asked to submit to a country that has outgrown them. They are starting to feel the way that most minorities have felt for the history of this country. And they don't like it. But unity without security is fear. You're asked to join some people you don't know, you don't understand, so you're afraid of them. People don't unify when they feel threatened. What they do is they fortify what they know. And what MAGA knows is I'm white, I'm rural, I don't trust anybody who don't fit into that category. I'm Christian, I'm straight. I don't trust anybody who don't fit into that category. I'm fiscally conservative. I don't trust anybody who doesn't fit in that category. And liberals are the same way. Liberals, progressive, leftists, they're all the same way. I don't trust anybody who I perceive as a bigot. I don't trust anybody who's homophobic or transphobic. I don't trust anybody who doesn't want to tax billionaires out of existence. I don't trust anybody who doesn't share that worldview. But the real lesson here is Dr. King, through his nonviolence, created moral pressure. He famously said that the arc of the universe is long, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. But Malcolm X created strategic pressure. Where Professor X built bridges, Magneto, you make sure those bridges matter. You don't get progress without both. If you want unity, fix the foundation, right? That's what we have to do as a country. We have to realize that some of those institutions are not just institutions of the establishment, they're foundations of how we live. Think about this. Earlier this year, and well, back in 2025, um Donald Trump got numbers from the BLS, which is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He didn't like the numbers, so he fired, fired the lady, Morgan Dorfer, I think was her name. Um he fired her. He got rid of her. Well, the numbers didn't get better. The numbers didn't get better, they got worse. But then you put a an indictment on Jerome Powell, who's the chair of the Federal Reserve, because he won't lower interest rates because you want them lower because you think it's gonna juice the economy. Then you send the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, down to Georgia to seize voting rolls so you can relitigate the 2020 election, casting doubt on every single vote that was cast. Right? And now in the United States Congress, and I was just in DC last week, uh on the Hill, they're debating something called the SAVE Act. And they're saying that they need to pass the SAVE Act, which will severely limit the type of identification that is acceptable to vote. They're saying that they need to pass this to secure elections. Well, at this point, if everybody believes that every election is rigged, how are we gonna trust the outcomes of any election? Right now, in my state, the most powerful Republican, Phil Berger, is down 23, 24 votes after the primary. He's contesting this. Now, here's the crazy part about it is that the infrastructure that he has set up will absolutely allow him to subvert the will of the people, right? His son is a Supreme Court justice. His other son is the county commissioner in the in in one of the counties in his district. Guy who works at the Board of Elections worked for him for years. So people are looking at this and saying, man, this guy, Sam Page, who's a former sheriff, he won this election fair and square, but guess what? He's not gonna be able to be called the victor because he's gonna overturn it. Phil Berg's gonna overturn it. If you can't trust the vote, if you can't trust the fact that you get to choose your leaders, what do you have as a society? What do you have? And so people don't want to think about those things because it unravels what we know as a society and it kills progress. And so when you look at the competing visions of Martin Luther King and Professor X versus Malcolm X and Magneto, you don't get progress if you don't have both of these visions. If you want unity, fix the foundation, rebuild economic stability, invest in workforce and skills, create real opportunity because when people are secure, they don't look for enemies. Any crime statistic will tell you when people are employed, when unemployment goes down, when people actually get jobs, so does crime. I can tell you, right in our city of High Point, North Carolina, 118,000 people. I've been blessed to be a city councilman here for six years. And we've seen it. We've seen violent crime go down 67% in the last two years. We've seen property crime go down 57%. Why? Because people have been working. Now, with the economy and the labor market trending the way it is, we might see that go the opposite direction. We can go back to COVID when everyone was locked down and nobody was working. Crime was sky high. Violent crime, murders, sexual assaults, domestic violence was all sky high because people did not have anything to occupy their minds or their time. So when you want to create real opportunity and you want to secure our society, build and fix the foundation. So America keeps asking, why are we divided? Because we're trying to solve a power problem with speeches. We quote Dr. King and I did it here, but it we ignore why Malcolm X existed. Every year we go through the MLK year, right? We go to the M MLK, we have parades, we have oratory contests, we do all these things in honor of MLK. But we can't we can't dismiss the fact that MLK would have been considered a radical today. They love him when he's dead. They love him because he's dead, because he's when he spoke truth to power. And this is the Malcolm X and Dr. King came closer together as they aged and as they learned more. The radicalization that Malcolm X had in his life started to melt away once he experienced more and he got a little bit more culture. He got a little bit more diversity in his life. He went to Mecca, he saw white Muslims, he didn't know they existed. He came back home and he said, Hey, I think we can keep the core of our vision, but adopt some of these more open stances. Dr. King was exactly on the other side of that. He started to realize after spending months in jail in Alabama after having dogs turned on them and the Edmund Pettus Bridge and Bloody Sunday, he started to realize, man, we can't defend this vision without defending ourselves. So as you think about it, they got a little bit closer to one another. They started to find this kind of meeting of the minds. Dr. King famously said one time, hey, I have a fear that I'm integrating my people into a burning house. What am I doing? He started to fear integration, right? Because he saw exactly what MAGA fears today, which is displacement. And so if you take this back, Magneto and Professor X did the same thing, right? Magneto crossed the line when he said, look, in order to defend myself, I've got to strike you first. Anybody anybody thinking about that right now? In the war with Iran? We preemptively hit Iran, right? Preemptively, because we said they're an imminent threat. So we went in there and we hit them first. Magneto had the same idea. Look, I know you guys are plotting to get me. And here's the reality about Iran, and this isn't this is not a war episode. But Iran has been planning for this for 47 years. Since the last incursion. They've been planning for this for 47 years. So the idea that the president thinks we're just gonna go in there and mow these people down is gonna be the same realization that humans had when they went after Genosha and Asteroid X. There are people there who want to survive. And survival is a powerful instinct. Now, if you take the fact that these people also have superpowers, that's a really dangerous thing to do. We were talking about the mutants. But in this case, we preemptively hit a country because we thought they were a threat and a threat to our allies. But Dr. King realized, and the more he spoke out in terms of economic justice, in terms of fixing these institutions, in terms of tearing down some of these old entrenched power structures, the more they feared him. Until ultimately they killed him. April 4th, 1968, he died. He was assassinated, he was murdered. And a lot of the people today who bastardize the quote, that I want to be judged by the content of my character, not the care, like the not the color of my skin, to bastardize that quote, those people would have been on the side of the guy who assassinated Dr. King. Malcolm X was assassinated too. Strong political leaders often face death. But we keep asking, right? Why are we divided? We talk about unity, but we avoid the truth. Until this country deals with fear, deals with power, deals with economic reality, you won't get the dream. But you will keep creating Malcolm X's and Magneto's. You want Professor X's and MLKs. But until we fix these problems, you're going to keep getting Magneto's. It's inevitable. What do you think MAGA is? MAGA is just the right wing version of Magneto. The same fear that they have about being the great replacement theory. You'll hear a lot of right wing commentators and white supremacists, commentators, talking about the great replacement theory. You saw it in Charlottesville a few years ago. The khaki and Tiki Torch crowd marching, screaming, Jews will not replace us. Magneto just wanted to be able to survive. But he knew they would never accept him. So he went first. We're going to keep creating Magnetos in this country every single day that we don't deal with these economic realities, with these social inequities. We're going to keep creating the thing that we fear. So where do you come in? Right? Where do you come in? I don't know which side you're on. I don't know which camp you fall into, whether you're on the right or the left, or you're Republican or Democrat, whether you're conservative or liberal or leftist or uh libertarian. I don't I don't know where you are. But here's the thing. If that's where you are, that's where you should be accepted. We're gonna disagree. I got no love for MAGA. I think it's inept. I think it's a failure. I have no love for it whatsoever. But I respect this right to exist. I respect the right that MAGA exists for a reason. MAGA was not just birthed out of the mind of a single man. This was decades upon coming. Trump just honed it into a finely edged weapon. But this is kind of my call to you, right? Are you MLK, Professor X? Are you leaning to that side? Do you want to coexist with the political factions that are in our society today? Or are you on the other side? Magneto and Malcolm X, right? Are you wanting to separate? Marjorie Taylor Green, before she left Congress, said we need a political divorce. Right and the left go their own separate ways, essentially creating two countries. Now, economically, I don't I don't know how you do that. Um intertwined, states and all that. So I get what she was saying, right? That I don't know how you do this because we live together. We're supposed to be a community. I don't know if you want to create a MAGA community and a leftist community, and everybody go live in that and segregate that way. It was hyperbole. But there are people here every day, and I'm not even gonna lie, I'm not even gonna front with you guys. I go through it myself. Like I struggle every single day listening, like, man, I don't really want to listen to this guy. I have nothing in common. We're never gonna agree. But that's not what the future of America needs. We can't survive that way. So I want you guys to think about what your vision for America is and what what what the real vision of America needs to be. Because we can't know what we are going to be until we know who we are. And I think America right now is going through an identity crisis. It's like discovering your mutant abilities, right? We're going through this identity crisis. We don't know who we are. We're changing every single day. And so what happens? We have to change with it. We have to evolve, we have to grow. Because if not, America faces a future that is very dark and very bleak, where no one is going to survive. And so, if you guys, if this, if this hit with you guys, right, don't sit on this. This is this is the call to action, right? Don't sit on this. Learn a little bit more about what's going on in your city, in your state, in your town. Talk to some people that are not on your side of the aisle. But share this podcast with people who need to hear it. Because there's a bunch of people out there who love politics, right? They love politics. And then a lot of people out there that love comic books, right? And there's so the reason why I talk about both is because I love both. I mean, if you look behind me, you can see I've got my Superman crest back there. I've got my Captain America shield. I'm wearing my Captain America shirt. Um But where are you leaning? Right? Are you leaning towards Malcolm X? Professor X? Magneto? MLK? Where are you? But anyway, folks, um, we're gonna talk about this some more in the upcoming episodes. But um, make sure you subscribe, follow, tap in, because we're not done with these conversations. And if you've been here before, you already know we're building something bigger than content, we're building awareness. I'm here to educate, not just entertain. I guess you could say I'm here to edutain. Any, yeah, yeah, anyway, yeah. But anyway, this is superhero politics podcast, guys. Um I know I've been in and out, but had a lot going on with the new company and uh re-election and kids graduating college, but uh I'm gonna make it an effort to come back with you because this conversation is not just for you guys to listen to, it's also for me to have an outlet to express um what I get to do in my daily life, right? I've been elected now for six years. Um thinking of taking a step in a in a couple of years here, won't break any news, but this is important. These conversations are important. But like we always say on superhero politics, it can't be done alone. There's not there's not a single person out there who is powerful enough to change the direction of this country on his or her own, right? And so every single day you have a chance to get it right, every single day you have a chance to to be better, to exercise more positive power. And some days it takes a superhuman effort. But we always say, and this is our tagline, you don't have to be a superhuman to be a superhuman. Thanks, guys. It's good to be back. I am thrilled. Uh, I feel like we're gonna get back in the swing of things here, but I am Michael Holmes, Councilman Michael Holmes from the great state of North Carolina, from the greatest city on the planet, high point, go high point university Panthers uh on their first round win over Wisconsin, um, hometown university, taking a big step. So until next time, this is superhero politics. Peace out.