An elected GOP politician from Ohio is warning that if Donald Trump doesn’t win the 2024 election it will mean “Civil War.”
State Sen. George Lang was one of the warm-up speakers Monday at a Trump campaign rally Monday, where vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance spoke solo for the 2024 GOP ticket for the first time. The rally was held in the suburb of Middletown, Ohio, where Vance grew up — just days after a Republican National Convention at which Trump had tried to stage a show of national unity.
Lang — in sharp contrast — used his time at the TRUMP branded podium to warn of violence that could tear America apart. Lang, who represents nearby Hamilton, Ohio, took the stage shouting Trump’s post-shooting battlecry, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” And Lang insisted that America is in a “fight for the soul of our nation” and for “our kids and our grandkids.”
He then uncorked his views on looming partisan violence. “I believe wholeheartedly that Donald Trump and Butler County’s J.D. Vance are the last chance to save our country, politically,” Lang said. “I’m afraid that if we lose this one, it’s gonna take a civil war to save this country.”
Lang quickly emphasized that a militarized MAGA movement would win such a war.
“It will be saved,” he said.
Lang didn’t stop there, elaborating that “if we come down to a civil war I’m glad we have people like … the Bikers for Trump on our side,” pointing to a group of MAGA motorcycle enthusiasts in the audience. Lang then inveighed against liberals he claimed are “chipping away” at our rights, insisting of the American republic, that 2024 is the “last stand to save it!”
The bombastic message suggests MAGA Republicans are returning to form after the RNC convention in Milwaukee, which attempted to portray Trump — in the aftermath of the attempt against his life — as a changed man and a chastened figure who would lead the country to a less divisive, unified place. “I am running to be president for all of America,” Trump said during his acceptance of the GOP nomination, “not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America.”
However that mask of unity was loosely applied — and the familiar divisive impulses and bellicose language of the MAGA movement were on display at side events throughout the week. At a Moms for Liberty forum, for example, former Trump presidential rival Vivek Ramaswamy compared the MAGA movement to America’s founding revolutionaries, and declared that the 2024 election would be “our generation’s 1776.”
Of course, Heroes didn’t invent any of those ideas. But in 2006, it had the superhero TV lane almost entirely to itself. The young Clark Kent adventure Smallville was still around, and a Blade series had just concluded its first (and only) season only days before Heroes debuted, but these were niche products on less-watched channels. In those years after the early Spider-Man and X-Men movies, but before the MCU completely reshaped pop culture, there was an obvious demand that had mostly gone unfilled on the small screen. Heroes became an instant smash as much for what it was about as for how it actually told its stories; the underwhelming first season finale made clear that the show wasn’t so great at the latter, and it soon went from phenomenon to punchline.
Supacell was created by rapper-turned-filmmaker Rapman, whose real name, Andrew Onwubolu, perhaps sounds less well-suited to making such a project. It arrives in a marketplace where the overwhelming supply of superhero content has clearly outstripped demand, and where teasers for upcoming Marvel and DC projects are first met with skepticism or fatigue rather than giddiness. So it can’t get by just on its subject matter. It needs a distinct hook, and execution, to distinguish it from the competition.
That all five leads are Black South Londoners is something of a hook. There have, of course, been other recent films and series with Black heroes and predominantly Black ensembles, but Rapman leans in on his home turf, and on the cultural and socioeconomic forces that have shaped his five heroes. Michael (Tosin Cole) is a delivery truck driver, engaged to social worker Dionne (Adelayo Adedayo). Sabrina (Nadine Mills) is a nurse. Andre (Eric Kofi Abrefa) is an ex-con struggling to rebuild a relationship with his teenage son. Rodney (Calvin Demba) is a struggling weed dealer. And Tazer (Josh Tedeku) is a would-be gangster whose powers develop at a convenient time for a war with a bigger, more established crew. All of them are connected not only by their newfound superdom, but by the neighborhood where they keep crossing paths well before Rodney turns out to be an off-brand Flash.
But the interpersonal material is all fairly generic. The performances are all fine, with Josh Tedeku and Eric Kofi Abrefa making particularly strong impressions in underwritten roles. Supacell understandably wants the audience to feel invested in these characters and their everyday problems before all the telekinesis and such exponentially complicates their lives. It’s just not hugely interesting. The six-episode season simultaneously feels too long and too short, dragging its heels to get to the part where the leads are regularly interacting and using their powers in exciting ways, then ending right when the story finally has real momentum.
And the powers are exciting, at least. Rapman directs many of the episodes, with Sebastian Thiel helming the others, and they and their collaborators have a clean, vibrant aesthetic for how things should look when, say, Rodney is moving at top speed, or when two or more characters with powers are fighting. It’s all done on a modest scale, yet at times more impressive than the action in some recent MCU shows.
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That Supacell improves as it goes along is perhaps the thing that most distinguishes it from Heroes, which started off strong and soon fizzled. But it doesn’t do enough to distinguish itself from our current overpopulated superhero TV landscape.
Supacell begins streaming June 27 on Netflix. I’ve seen all six episodes.
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