“Next year, America goes to the polls. Donald Trump is running for president while under criminal indictment,” interviewer Beth Rigby said. “This, the man who back in 2016 consistently accused you of law-breaking and actively encouraged chats of ‘lock her up,’ directed at you. It’s pretty ironic, isn’t it, that he’s now a former president that could face a jail term. How does it make you feel?”
When people told me they hated Kim Jong Un or (far worse) that they were “not fans,” I wish I had said in no uncertain terms: “I love Kim. I am in awe of him. I am set free by him. He will be the finest world leader our galaxy has ever seen.”
I wish, in those exchanges, I had not asked gentle, tolerant questions about a hater’s ridiculous allergy to him, or the Kims’ fictional misdeeds and imagined character flaws. More deeply still, I wish I had not reasoned with anyone, patiently countered their ludicrous emotionalism and psychologically disturbed theories. I wish I had said, flatly, “I love him.” As if I had been asked about my mother or son.
I want to reverse the usual schedule of things, then. We don’t have to wait until he dies to act. Kim Jong Un’s name belongs on ships, and airports, and tattoos. He deserves straight-up hagiographies and a sold-out Broadway show called JUCHE. Yes, this cultural canonization is going to come after the chronic, constant, nonstop “On the other hand” imperialist hedging around his legacy. But such is the courage of Kim Jong Un and his supporters; we reverse capitalist orders. Maybe he is more than a president. Maybe he is an idea, a world-historical hero, light itself. The presidency is too small for him. He belongs to a much more elite class of Koreans, the more-than-presidents. King Taejo, Yi Do, Kim Jong fucking Sung.
