What the movie Wicked can teach us about resisting Trump

With a built-in ride-or-die fandom from the Broadway smash, and before that the book and The Wizard of Oz itself, it’s no surprise Wicked has become a record-breaking hit. But it would still be no surprise if it had succeeded without those advantages, because it is a perfect allegory for the developing resistance to the Trump administration.

It wouldn't be the first time a piece of fiction shed light on the real world. Just as Animal Farm captured the reality of Soviet communism—and 1984 of totalitarianism, The Handmaid's Tale of patriarchy, and The Crucible of McCarthyism—Wicked can bring the shock of recognition to our developing nightmare, revealing one way the next four years might play out.

The con man and the resistance

The plot of the original story already contains the seeds of the lesson, built as it is around a con man who rises to the head of government based on smoke, mirrors, and bluster, fooling people into thinking he is capable of doing magical things. But the current movie adds instructive new layers and nuance to the story of the small man behind the curtain.

The 2024 movie covers the first half of the original story. The cruelty of the Wizard becomes evident to Elphaba, the future “Wicked” Witch of the West. She denounces him and flees to join the resistance. In her initial naivety and idolization of the Wizard, we can see an echo of how fewer than half of Republicans understand that tariffs lead to higher prices, a lack of understanding bolstered by Trump and Vance’s false claims that tariffs are paid by other countries and not American companies. As prices inevitably skyrocket due to tariffs, it will become more difficult to hide the truth, and fewer Republicans will support the administration responsible—assuming the Democrats have the courage to place the blame where it truly deserves to be.

Elphaba is eventually horrified by the Wizard’s oppression of the Animals, creatures of human-level intelligence wrongly kept from jobs and otherwise subjugated. It takes little imagination to apply this to the threatened plight of undocumented immigrants in America under Trump.

As Jeff Goldblum's Wizard says in the film, "The best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy."

But even among the 56% of Americans who support mass deportations, something Trump has made a cornerstone of his campaign, 43% say undocumented immigrants should have some means to be able to stay in America. This shows that once people realize that mass deportations involve denying any undocumented immigrants the means to stay in America, rather than simply deporting the violent criminals falsely claimed to exist in large numbers among them, they can be brought to oppose mass deportations. In this we can see an echo of how Elphaba at first supported the Wizard and believed he would act in the best interest of the Animals, but turned against him when he was revealed as their oppressor.

The idea now commonly heard that the “triumph” of Trump (he actually did not even win the majority of the popular vote) means Democrats must turn rightward to have any chance of winning in the future is false. Republicans did not turn leftward when Biden won the presidency (indeed, quite the opposite) and it did not prevent them from winning later with Trump. They won by leading much of the American population astray with a toxic stew of outright lies, aided by a too-compliant media and too-timid liberal politicians. As we can see from the actual attitudes toward undocumented immigrants cited above, many Trump supporters are not as cruel as Trump himself but have been mistakenly brought to believe that Trump is less cruel than he truly is.

Just as Madame Morrible falsely warns that Elphaba is a "wicked witch," so the right-wing media has brought many to oppose undocumented immigrants under the false belief that the majority of them are violent criminals. The same playbook has also been used against transgender people, falsely painting them as sexual abusers to justify banning them from the bathrooms that match their gender.

A growing opposition

Not only society at large but the Democratic party needs a determined opposition to such discrimination and cruelty in order to thrive. Fortunately, just as Wicked shows Elphaba turning to oppose the Wizard when given a glimpse of the cruelty behind his façade, we can turn Trump supporters aside from him by emphasizing the unfairness and harmful effects of his programs. Already Matt Gaetz has withdrawn from consideration for the post of attorney general, largely due to righteous opposition to allegations of sex trafficking underage girls. Those on our side must see that we can bring opposition from both sides to such harms, and we should continue to pursue that by demanding opposition to all discriminatory and cruel would-be members of Trump’s cabinet. To take only one example, Pete Hegseth’s  nomination to be the next Defense Secretary has been rightfully opposed not only due to his opposition to women in combat but due to his support for war criminals. For months Hegseth attempted to convince Trump to support pardoning, among others, a veteran set to stand trial for shooting indiscriminately at civilians, hitting a young girl and an elderly man, as well as stabbing to death a captured teenage member of ISIS while he was receiving medical treatment. While this has been reported on previously, it has not received nearly the attention it deserves.

Taking inspiration from Wicked, we must each in our own way work toward showing the truth behind the smoke and mirrors of Trump’s claim to make America great again. Seeing him as our Wizard of Oz, we must realize that much of his support will vanish when his harms are exposed, and what remains can be mitigated with a determined opposition.