Stormtrooper No More
Soldiering through an American winter
Star Wars is likely the most famous movie franchise in history. I’ve never been as crazy about the original film, A New Hope, as most movie-obsessed guys my age, but I grasped the basics.
The Empire is evil.
The heroes are the ones fighting the Empire.
Han Solo has all the best scenes.
My favorite Star Wars era actually started in 2015 with The Force Awakens, a sequel to Return of the Jedi (1983). TFA introduced a new generation of heroes, like Rey (Daisy Ridley), Poe Dameron (who’s not obsessed with Oscar Isaac?), and unforgettable Finn (John Boyega).
Finn is a stormtrooper, one of those galactic Keystone Cops who stumble around the galaxy in clunky, plastic armor, aimlessly shooting at ceilings. When we first meet Finn (a.k.a. FN-2187), his unit is storming into a peaceful community to slaughter a village of innocent people and aliens.
After a fellow trooper dies and leaves blood on Finn’s helmet, he stops firing. He looks around at the carnage as if to say, “What is this? What am I doing here?”
Finn experiences a moral snap, an internal break where his conditioning fails in the face of horrific reality. You can see the moment he stops being a cog in the evil empire’s machine.
The cinematic “waking up” from mind control often centers on a specific moment where the internal fog clears and is replaced by the crushing reality of what has transpired.
I’ve been thinking about movie moments like these a lot lately. The first one I recall was in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. I must’ve been 7 or 8 the first time I was traumatized by that baby Ceti eel crawling in Chekov’s ear to take over his mind. I mean ew.
Poor Chekov (Walter Koenig). He did some bad things while his cerebral cortex was compromised by Khan’s alien critter. His brain was eventually liberated, but he certainly needed some therapy.
The psychological term often used for these cathartic moments is “cognitive dissonance resolution.”
Cognitive dissonance is the psychological tension we feel when we hold two or more conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes at the same time. Picture someone—anyone random at all but certainly not me—who loves animals but also will devour a double bacon cheeseburger. To ease that inner conflict, we tend to adjust our beliefs, justify our behavior (“It’s organic bacon!”), or avoid any new information (like documented reality) that might deepen the discomfort.
When people have spent years invested in a movement, “breaking” isn’t usually a single cinematic moment like an eel crawling out of an ear. It’s often a slow, painful process where the reality of the actions finally outweighs the loyalty to the leader.
A common form of cognitive dissonance running rampant these days are people who call themselves Christians, which means to be Christ-like, even though they don’t seem to be anything like actual Christ.
Putting aside the religion piece, we’ve reached the ultimate breaking point recently when Minnesotan Alex Pretti was executed in broad daylight by unidentified, masked agents of this Republican administration.
We’ve long known that the MAGA people flying “Don’t Tread On Me” flags don’t care whether the government treads on others. In fact, they prefer masked men would especially tread on gays, immigrants, pretty much anyone who’s not white, but also liberals too (even the white ones).
But if there’s one thing the Trump crowd has long obsessed over, it’s the 2nd Amendment. How many years have we listened to the NRA gang go on and on about how they’ll never give up their guns. “They’ll have to pry this gun from my cold, dead hands!” Blah blah blah with their strawman.
But then…
Once Pretti was murdered, some of the villains in charge of the U.S. government quickly decried the ICU nurse as a domestic terrorist. All of a sudden, the party that celebrated Kyle “literally carry an assault rifle to a protest and shoot people” Rittenhouse had a big problem with an American citizen legally carrying a gun. (Pretti wasn’t at a protest at the time, btw, but what’s one more false statement to the Trump administration?)
But we’re finally seeing some of the orange man’s Kool-Aid drinkers hit their wakeup moment.
Many conservatives who for whatever reason chose to make the 2nd Amendment their entire personality at some point do not like seeing a white, male gun owner getting executed in the street by the tragically named Department of Homeland Security. It’s as though we are finally seeing an actual authoritarian government in the U.S. for the first time.
“Wait, are these ICE guys the ones we’ve been ranting about for decades?”
Yeah bro, the call is coming from inside the house. Turns out the people who spent a lifetime freaking out about a potential tyrannical government are the same people who went ahead and actually voted one in.
It’s not just paranoid gun owners either. Many farmers across the nation are being destroyed by Trump’s idiotic tariff wars and economic policies. I’ve lost count of all the interviews I’ve seen with American farmers who are losing multi-generational family legacies because they voted for a guy who convinced them Biden was the antichrist.
And, as always, the economy is the biggest ideology breaker. Millions of voters frankly don’t care about what happens to other people, as long as they have it good. But things are not good. Markets are shook, jobs are vanishing, healthcare is unattainable, and prices are sky high. Trumps tries to use words such as “groceries” and “affordability” like a toddler trying to speak Klingon.
And we’re only a year in. Just wait until the Republican’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” really gets going. The generational plundering is real. The middle class is screwed. All to elect a convicted felon who’s enriched himself by billions already during this presidency.
Anyway, it’s been a hoot in America so far this year. By my calculations, January of 2026 has been precisely 32 years long.
For all these reasons and more, many people are finally recognizing that they’ve been taken in by a conman and media network that’s already paid the largest fines in history for admitting to lying about the 2020 election and inciting a deadly coup.
Brainwashing is a powerful tool, man.
But there’s hope? (he said with a question mark).
Sure, we’ll need years to correct even some of the damage done by the Republicans in just this past year, but step one is pulling the plug on their cult by breaking the spell they have over the people they’ve manipulated and used.
I mean, even Joe Rogan is starting to get it you guys, and he’s probably been punched in the head a lot.
How you respond when the fever breaks in someone you know is up to you. I know many relationships are irretrievably broken. Families are already ruined.
But let me leave you with one more cinematic scene.
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Captain America a.k.a. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) spends a few flicks facing off against his nemesis, The Winter Soldier. This deadly assassin is actually Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), his old war-time pal who was compromised and programmed by the evil organization known as MAGA Hydra. He did lots of terrible stuff.
Until…
With the help of his friends, Bucky finally breaks free from the immediate brainwashing. But talk about guilt. He can still recall all the horrible things he said and did to so many people. Oh the pain of rediscovered conscience.
Worse still, Bucky doesn’t know if he is truly able to resist the trigger words that made him do those evil deeds.
Bucky’s final test comes in the fictional African nation of Wakanda, where he is being rehabilitated. In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier we see the final test. Dora Milaje (special forces) warrior Ayo (Florence Kasumba) recites the trigger words to see if The Winter Soldier is truly gone.
Bucky’s moment of freedom comes at last. He breaks down in tears of relief, a man finally owning his own mind again.
These scenes are powerful because they don’t treat the “waking up” as a happy ending, but rather as the beginning of a very painful reckoning with the damage done while the “mind-control” was in place.
A lot of Americans will be waking up as time rolls on. Like Finn, they’ll snap out of it and look around as if to say, “What is this? What am I doing here?”
Sure, some people will never wake up because they are eyes wide open to how much they want power, wealth, white nationalism, or whatever unjust system they purposefully seek at the expense of others.
But even they will one day have to deal with living in a reality where the fever has snapped and history is clear-eyed. Some years from now, no one will seem to remember empowering criminals, supporting violent oppression, or bankrupting their children’s future.
Yet, the damage will be done. Here’s hoping the mental resolution comes sooner than later for many. Because once the blood’s on the helmet, you can’t unsee it.