Donald J, the man who thought he could work miracles

In 1936, when Hitler’s Nazi party consolidated its power in Germany, British filmmaker Alexander Korda produced a comedy film. on a story Co-written by HG Wells titled The Man Who Can Work Miracles.

Here, as a kind of experiment, the gods bestowed vast and unlimited powers on an ordinary human. Our hero is at first surprised and amused by his ability to do (almost) anything. He discovers that he can levitate objects and make them appear and disappear with just a wave of his hand. To the astonishment of his friends drinking at the bar, he has a lamp lit upside down.

But as time goes on, he leaves these simple tricks behind and begins to use his extraordinary abilities to gain more and more power over the world around him. The only thing he thinks he can’t do is ask the woman of his dreams to love him. Still, it could change everything, even send the local police officer to hell for harassing him on the street.

At the end of the movie, he has created a magnificent palace to become the world emperor. But dusk begins to fall as the ceremonies drag on before a major meeting of all world leaders. In order to preserve daylight for his coronation, he orders the world to stop spinning, unwittingly causing not only the instant collapse of the palace around him, but also chaos and destruction across the world. Seeing this result, the gods decide to end their experiments and return our hero and the world to its previous peaceful state.

In the 1930s, this story was a prescient metaphor for where the world was heading with Hitler’s increasing power, arrogance, and aggression. But it could also be a metaphor for what’s happening now, 90 years later.

During his first term in office, Trump suddenly found himself confronted with the enormous power of the US presidency, which was bestowed upon him not by the gods but by the American voters. He soon learned that he could use this power to satisfy his every desire. Waving his Sharpie, he could start building a massive border wall, create a deeply conservative majority on the Supreme Court, and unveil a powerful new vaccine to fight Covid-19. It could also remove regulations, restrict workers’ rights, and even destroy international agreements. With his spell on the Republican Party, he could eliminate taxes and free up domestic fossil fuel production.

In his second term, he created a palace for himself, like the hero in our movie; in this case, there’s a gilded White House that could rival Versailles and a ballroom under construction. It eliminated large numbers of government positions, migrant workers, and international agreements. It enabled new government institutions to emerge and others to disappear. While he surprised his friends in the petrochemical industry by subverting fuel economy standards, like the hapless police officer he did, sending national and international law and the international rules-based order into a figurative hell. But none of the president’s power has allowed Donald to win the public’s affection, as reflected by his persistently low approval ratings.

THIS IS SO FUNNY 

“Iran  wanted to make me their religious leader but I refused and said no thank you”

-Donald Trump

He has completely lost it. pic.twitter.com/PcF2ds4LTB

— Amock_ (@Amockx2022) March 26, 2026

Now, with his innate arrogance and arrogance combined with great power and even greater ignorance, Trump has unleashed a war of choice in the Middle East that is already spreading confusion and distress to every corner of the world. The world is still spinning but plagued by turmoil, anxiety, and uncertainty; Trump, on the other hand, finds himself in a violent vortex of his own creation that he can no longer control.

Unfortunately, unlike in the movie, we can’t rely on intervention from above to put things back together.

So we must do what we can to avoid descending into chaos in Australia, and hope that American voters will see through the propaganda and gaslighting in this year’s midterm elections, recognize their plight, and take on the role of gods in this matter. ‘The Man Who Can Work Miracles’ To return the country and the world to a saner place.

Then maybe one day we can look forward to seeing a new comedy: “The Man Who Thought He Could Work Miracles”.

Jeff Peck is a former lecturer in film history at La Trobe University.