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Hello! Yes yes, I know you know who I am. You may recognize me from the shiny spandex suit or the cape or the mask that pretends to hide my identity but really doesn’t at all. And, of course, all of the good deeds I’m always doing out there, whether it’s the big stuff, like keeping a bus full of people from driving off a broken bridge, or just saving the occasional cat who can’t get down from a tree.

Oh yeah, I have to do that now, because the Trump Administration has cut federal funding for all sorts of basic services! And now, with eight Democrats voting along with all Republicans to end the government shutdown, even though they didn’t get the extension of ACA healthcare subsidies for even a single year, which was the one concession that they said they had to have (after they gave up all the others), boy is my job going to get even busier!

I mean, I’m already flying people to distant hospitals because the one in their rural area has closed, or teleporting women having miscarriages across state lines because doctors in their own state won’t do anything to keep them from dying of sepsis because they’re afraid of being prosecuted. Now, with millions of people unable to afford annual check-ups or to go to the doctor when they feel a bit under-the-weather, I’m going to be taking waaaay more people to emergency room visits which will charge them (aka the government, because the people sure as hell can’t afford it) multi-thousand-dollars-and-upwards for something that could have been a co-pay!

And before I had to suddenly be a more-than-full-time healthcare provider, I already had my hands full. I’ve been trying to save people from being kidnapped off the street — or from their window-smashed cars, or from schools in front of their students, or at home in front of their children (sometimes I also have to save the kids from being arrested too) — by extra-judicial gangs of masked villains. Sometimes I’ve had to break these poor innocents out of tent camps surrounded by alligators, or “temporary holding facilities” where they have to sleep crammed together on the floor and poop in buckets for weeks without adequate food. I’ve been trying to stop drones from blowing up poor fishermen in international waters, trying to keep civilians from being slaughtered in Ukraine and Sudan (since that’s not something our government does any more), trying to protect consumers from fraud (sometimes post-presidential pardon!), delivering food to people who aren’t getting paid for their government jobs or whose SNAP has been delayed because…I don’t know why, who the fuck does any more?? I’m telling you, it’s been a year. Oh, it’s only been, what, nine months? Shit.

What I’m saying is, I could use your help. And I’m not talking to all of you, because, I mean, a lot of you ordinary folks have been stepping up. Like full neighborhoods sometimes, alerting their neighbors when the masked villains show up, sometimes even letting the air out of their tires or standing in front of their trucks until they retreat. Many of you are are doing mutual aid in your communities, providing food and clothing and information about how to be safe. More and more of you have been marching and voting and speaking out, and I will say that’s just wonderful to see.

But when I say “You” in this context, I’m talking specifically to those of you whose job description already includes the words “serve the public,” something you were elected to do. Remember that? Because I’m getting the feeling like a lot of you don’t any more. I mean, I know you, like me, would rather just be shooting lasers out of your eyes for fun at whatever strikes your fancy — a cockroach, Pete Hegseth (same thing?) — but that’s not what we were hired to do, am I right?

Because, uh, hello! You U.S. Senators and Congresspeople, you were chosen for your jobs by the people to, oh, I don’t know, be a co-equal branch of government? Be a check and balance on the president? Decide whether or not to attack people with the U.S. Military instead of just letting some rando in the White House do it — because we know the president doesn’t have the brain cells to do it (any more? Ever? Does it matter?), and even if he did, it’s not his job anyway, it’s yours you idiots! Pass legislation that governs the country, or taxes and tariffs people, instead of letting those same randos, that nobody elected, write executive orders for Trump to sign and then forget that he signed to ban people from the country (as if they needed to because who in their right mind would want to come here now anyway?), or set tariffs, or fire people for no reason, or take over buildings that don’t belong to them, or, in general, destroy the government — the same government, mind you, that is paying your damn bills. I mean, at the very least just fucking show up for work! I know that for the past month and a half, you all have been avoiding even doing that — and when air traffic controllers are supposed to do their jobs without getting paid, seems like the least you could do is go to the Capitol, swear in a new Congressperson, call a vote on releasing the FBI files of a convicted pedophile — I mean, the bar is so low!

What I’m saying is, now’s the time. It’s not too late to step up and be the hero that we elected you to be. So much is going wrong in this country right now, including lots of stuff that superspeed, flying, and laser eyes can’t fix, like inflation, and measles outbreaks, and wage theft. I know some of you (Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries) feel useless, but that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: you’ve been acting like weenies, and if you keep it up, soon you won’t have the power to be anything else. And I know some of you (Lisa Murkowski) are afraid — of being primaried, of being harassed, maybe even of being physically attacked. But because you won’t do your job, more and more of your constituents have to deal with that type of shit every day now, and without the rule of law that you (John Roberts) are refusing to enforce, that’s only going to increase.

So join us. You can be a hero who stands up for democracy. You can be one of the people who saves this country. And you don’t have to start fires with your mind or land a plane on your back to do it. You don’t even have to wear a cape, or a suit you can’t fucking go to the bathroom in.

All you have to do is your job.