• Disney+

A quote from Star Wars: Andor has been ringing through my skull since the second Trump regime began its blitzkrieg against everything from trans folks and education to workplace safety standards and children's cancer research. Young revolutionary Karis Nemik tells Cassian Andor, "The pace of oppression outstrips our ability to understand it, and that is the real trick of the Imperial Thought Machine. It's easier to hide behind 40 atrocities than a single incident."

That's exactly what's going on in the world right now. Trump, Elon Musk and company are trying to break so much so fast that we don't have time to comprehend it, let alone respond. I'm still not quite sure what to do with it, but the writing in Star Wars: Andor certainly helps me understand it.

At their best, stories show us what to look for in our world to proverbially slay the dragons in our own lives, whether those are dragons internal to our psyche, or external like the nightmare currently sweeping over the land. Stories have been used to understand the world around us since the beginning of our existence. They're meant to tell us of the dangers out there, to build empathy inside us, to warn us of hazards beyond the caves, to show us the way.

Andor is just one great example right now as we cast our eyes about, wondering what to do in the face of fascism wrapped in American flags. I know some folks don't like seeing "fascism" used in reference to anything outside of 20th-century Europe—otherwise it's only sparkling authoritarianism—but we have stories and writings about that misconception, too. The great writer Umberto Eco, who personally survived fascists in Italy, explained that the word was a synecdoche: Any part that resembles fascism leads to and describes the whole. In his book The Name of the Rose, he wrote about monks in 1327 who started murdering each other because they were afraid of the immorality of comedy, and how it might spread to destroy humanity. Yeah, he was writing about book-burning by fascists and how they try to control ideas to force everyone to think like they do.

Every classic fantasy story we know and love is really about how the good people of a land stand up to the evil, authoritarian villains. What would The Lord of the Rings have looked like if instead of taking the One Ring to Mordor, Frodo and the rest of the hobbits put on red hats, said "Make the Shire great again!" and watched idly as Sauron covered all the lands in a second darkness, pretending that this was what was good for them all along? It wouldn't seem very believable, would it?

It happens every day. It makes it easier to understand Jor-El, Superman's father, so persecuted for believing in the catastrophe toward which Krypton was heading that he sent his only son to Earth while their leaders refused to save their home. It felt hard to believe until I saw people foolish enough to believe that climate change isn't real, that vaccines don't work, and that we need to dismantle any public good that safeguards the people of the United States as well as the entire planet. Superman was sent to Earth to show us what kindness looked like as a superpower, and he had a habit of punching Nazis and racists. Now, Superman would be the enemy, while Lex Luthor is in the White House, running the "Department of Government Efficiency."

Imagine this: Star Trek offers us a future where there are no billionaires, and everyone in society has what they need. Isn't that what we should be aiming for? A new American dream. It seemed like we were heading that way for a while, but Trump and his lapdog Musk are trying to bring us to the desert wastelands of Mad Max, jockeying to see who will debase themselves quickest to be Immortan Joe.

But if you watch Star Trek, you know about a thing called the Bell Riots. In Deep Space Nine's third season (originally aired in 1995—prescient!), Sisko and crew are sent back to 2024, where homelessness and wealth disparity have reached an all-time high and the poor are put in de facto internment camps. People had enough, and riots broke out, leading Americans to a reckoning. They solve the problems that led to such a horrific situation in the first place—namely, unchecked capitalism. These violent outbursts pave the way for a utopian post-capitalist society where everyone gets what they need, obtains the education they want, and explores themselves (as well as the stars) to their heart's content.

Art shows us the way. We just need to stop following demagogues and fascists off the cliffs of insanity. These works might inspire us to some drastic places, but the worse we let the sickness get, the harder the cure is going to be.