Somewhere in the darkness, where private thoughts can be snuffed out before spoken out loud, there is a Democrat who understands that President Trump is now legend. After the State of the Union, one woman in Carthage, North Carolina said it clearly: "We need to put a cape on his back, an 'S' on his chest, and call him Superman. No mortal man could take what he has took in the last three years and do what he has done." The entire diner where she was being interviewed exploded in enthusiastic cheers. She seemed to have expressed a feeling that others were feeling, too. Can you hear that John Williams score in your mind? Is it getting louder and louder? I can assure you that the Democrats are beginning to hear its beats. They've dedicated their lives to destroying President Trump one way or another, but in their all-consuming hatred and rage, they misapprehended what they were doing: through their villainy, they created a hero.

You can't have a hero without hardship. If descending a golden escalator conferred greatness, if no adversity were required to prove a man's worth, then "hero" would lose all meaning. It is the struggle of the journey that separates the successful from the heroic. In rejecting the 2016 election results, sabotaging the transition of power, and threatening the president's life and freedom daily, the Democrats have made President Trump Heracles by their own hands. He is the warrior slaying the nine-headed Hydra of the federal government, the swamp-drainer clearing the mass of dung piled high within the bureaucrats' Augean stables, and the defiant spirit who rages against the Democrats, NeverTrump Rump, and Deep State trying to bury him by bringing their three-headed Cerberus back from the gates of hell and mocking the beast in celebration before the assorted media in mourning. Donald Trump won the presidency all by himself, but the Democrats made him legendary, and every labor they throw his way simply adds to his growing mythology. They want him gone; they've made him immortal.

Here is where President Trump's journey differs from Heracles or Achilles or Odysseus, though. Almost all of his State of the Union address immortalized not himself, but the American heroes all around us. He redirected the spotlight away from himself to the wife and son who will always bear the pain of an American soldier's sacrifice for our freedom; to the parents of a devout Christian whose life was stolen, even as she saved the lives of so many others around her; to a man who refuses to let his brother's murder go in vain just because California cares so little for the lives of its own citizens. Like a great storyteller passing our history from one generation to the next, President Trump brought back to life the Tuskegee Airmen from our past and connected them to the Space Force of our future. He honored our military and our law enforcement officers and the men and women who protect our borders, but he also honored the sacrifice of the military family missing a loved one and the struggles of a twenty-one-week-old baby who fought for life, of a drug-addicted American who fought to reclaim life, and of a fourth-grade girl who fights for the right to seek an even better life. He reminded us that friends of freedom are forever rare and that the space between Venezuela's gulags and American liberty is fought by those who exercise their free speech, even while facing a lifetime of threats from those who want to control what can be said and heard.

Throughout his presidency, President Trump has asked his fellow citizens to do two things: (1) remember America's greatness and (2) believe in America's destiny. In the not so distant past, these would have seemed like unremarkable requests. Today, they are shots of adrenaline bolting us awake from a nightmare we never chose. America's enemies have spent so many decades distorting our history and shaming our heroes that we have become a nation of walking wounded, uncertain about who we are as a people or where we want to go. But ours is a magnificent story. A story of sacrifice and hardship and struggle and great perseverance. A story of the underdog who never submits, the bloodied hero who always returns to his feet. A story of dreamers and builders and fighters and winners. A story of freedom. We are being asked to remember all we have accomplished as a people, and once you begin remembering, it becomes easy to see. Our problem has never been too few heroes; our problem has been a culture that blinds us from seeing them standing right beside us. President Trump used his State of the Union address to shine a bright light on who we are. He is indeed a hero, but he is a hero leading a nation of heroes, too. More and more Americans are remembering this truth and beginning to whisper it among themselves. But the thing with whispers is that if you put enough of them together, you get a roar. That may be President Trump's most Herculean feat yet.

The sage lady from Carthage is right to see shades of Superman in the president, but I am reminded of another John Williams score growing in symphonic strength in the background of his journey: Star Wars. When he decided to sacrifice comfort for his countrymen, he became for many "A New Hope." For four long years, we've endured while "The Empire Strikes Back." But if the State of the Union and the president's post-acquittal press conference told us anything, it's that "The Return of the Jedi" has just begun. He said it clearly last week while Speaker Pelosi protested: "The best is yet to come." Best to believe a man who gave America her very own Space Force.

Image: Ninian Reid via Flickr.