After one of the most divisive elections in US history, we are sitting here in our recovery stages. I don’t want to go into the election too much, I already said my piece on Facebook, and that’s where it will remain. Instead, I’d like to discuss and interesting topic that I came across on election day. Someone had posed a question, asking who I would vote for, if the presidential candidates were Bruce Wayne, and Steve Rogers. I initially laughed, and picked Bruce Wayne because I love Batman, but after a while, my mind kept going back to it. I started questioning my choice, and how much evidence was behind both candidates as a legitimate choice. So here, I’d like to go over everything I can think of with these two choices.
As a small disclaimer; I am hardly a comic book expert. I like them, and I like superheroes, but I know that I barely scratch the surface in knowledge about these characters. If I am wrong about something, please tell me. I’d love to discuss it.
I am a big Batman fan, and will try my best to keep my bias out of it, but here we go.
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As I see it, there are two ways of approaching this. Either I know their secret identities, or I only know their public personas. If it was in the case of the latter, I’d almost unanimously vote for Wayne, unless Rogers’ policies were revolutionary that I believed with. So I’ll be going with the idea that I know their identities.
Bruce Wayne/Batman: The Dark Knight is the crusader of Gotham City. A commanding figure that patrols the night, and fights the crime of one of the most frightening and corrupt cities in the world. His secret identity, Bruce Wayne, is Gotham’s billionaire playboy, owner of the most profitable company in the city, and son of Gotham’s most loved family. Wayne has shown interest in political matters before, mainly when it came to matters of criminal justice. He supported Harvey Dent when he was running for District Attorney, knowing that Dent was one of the only men he could trust to end the corrupt nature of the Law in Gotham. And though he can be a bit extreme with his ideas on law enforcement, he is very strict on his ideas of not going overboard. He wants prison to be reasonable, and not cruel. He is also well-known philanthropist that has donated immense amounts of money and assets to try and rebuild the broken community around him. He would have to retire his Batman identity, letting Dick Grayson take over while Wayne fought the bureaucracy of politics in order to change the country to an idea he sought was right.
My biggest fear with Wayne is that I don’t think he would have much of a Foreign Policy. He isn’t too focused on those matters, which can be very detrimental for not only our country, but several others. It is hard to vote for someone who has no plan for what he would do about foreign aggressions, or trade agreements with countries that we have tepid relationships with. And though we might think it is great, Batman cannot appear in Vladimir Putin’s bedroom, standing over him, telling him to stop being a dick.
Steve Rogers/Captain America: The Epitome of US patriotism and pride, Captain America is a military veteran from a time when the country was very different from the way it is now. He is used to seeing hate, and prejudice first hand, and will fight vehemently against it. Rogers has been living his life in the modern day as the leader of the Avengers, and a man adjusting to a world he doesn’t fully understand around him. Unlike Wayne, Rogers’ would actually have a proper foreign policy, due to his experience in the military. My biggest fear with that is that he might want to continue the practice of the US being the police force of the world. I’m afraid he would interfere in times of crisis among other nations, and though that isn’t necessarily a bad or wrong thing, if not done properly, it leads to the creation of and tyranny of organizations like ISIS or the North Korean dictatorship. My one faith in him is that I feel like he has the determination to finish the job he starts.
Rogers’ is a strong supporter in freedom, and the equality of all people. He has often fought against the government when he thought they were overstepping their boundaries. And though he has experience leading a team, he does not know about much other than that. I think being president would be far too overwhelming for him.
Decision: I would most likely vote for Bruce Wayne in a split-second decision. He has a lot of problems, but I would agree with him about a lot of issues more than I would with Steve. I trust Bruce to root out the corruption in Washington. His foreign policy would scare me, but it would all depend on what it actually is. Both men could surprise me with their views on different issues, and to be honest, it wouldn’t take much to switch me over to Cap.
I like Bruce, but if he changed. If he decided that crime was too big of a deal and that law enforcement needed to be better militarized for the country, then I would be supporting Captain America’s revolution 100%
My Support of each Candidate.
Bruce Wayne: 58%
Steve Rogers: 42%
