In the opener to the VERY old series, "Superman", starring Kirk Alyn, (1948), a dramatic voice announces that Superman fights for "Truth, Justice, and

In 1836, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche introduced the term "Ubermensch", which has been translated into English as Superman. In the 1930's, Hitler appealed to that concept when he spoke of a master race, although that was a corruption of what Nietzsche was getting at.

Seigel and Schuster were two American Jews, who were concerned about the Nazis rising in power in Germany. As they discussed this, they asked themselves the following question: suppose there WERE a "Superman". Why do people assume that such a being would use his abilities to assert mastery over others? Couldn't he use his power to help others?

And so they created a comic strip, which they eventually sold to DC comics. The character Superman first appeared nationally in Action Comics number 1, in 1939.

So at that point when the two of them first imagined this character, I would think that "fighting for the American way" (even if they were not using that phrase yet) would mean standing up to Hitler's philosophy and asserting the American ideal that "all men are created equal." Today, that would mean repudiating White Nationalism.

By 1948, Americans were alarmed by the Iron Curtain in Europe and the cold war. So I would think that at that point in time, fighting for the American way would mean standing against Soviet influence. The analogy today would be to take a hard line against Vladimir Putin's cyber campaigns against us.

I think it is interesting to think about what the news media was like at that time. Large American cities had multiple newspapers, with a whole spectrum of political viewpoints. The print media was as polarized then as cable media is today. But the phrase "un-American" was reserved for those who were spies or collaborators for the USSR, or for members of the American Communist Party in general (many of whom, in all fairness, saw the USSR as a corruption of what Communism ought to have looked like.) Republicans and Democrats may have hated each other, but I don't think they would toss around the phrase "un-American" simply because of strong political differences.

Certainly the central idea of the American way is democratic elections, which of course both the Nazis and the Soviets opposed. And the tragedy today is that when people look at what has happened since our last election, each side is positive that the OTHER is trying to "steal" the election, so each side sincerely believes that they are fighting for the American way and that the other side is un-American.

As for me, I am convinced that all the "doubts" about the election outcome were artificially planted by Trump and his sycophant news media and websites. (Mitch McConnell, On January 6, expressed this much more eloquently than I just did.) After almost 50 court cases, in which judges (most of whom were Republican-nominated, and some of whom were Trump-nominated) found scant evidence of the supposed wide spread fraud, and after the recounts certified by Republican secretaries of state, it seems absurd to hold onto the lie Trump continues to cling to. He has a long history of claiming things are "rigged" when he doesn't get his way.

The American way is to acknowledge the new duly-elected President, and if you oppose him, to do so by democratic political means, and not by armed rebellion.