You do not have to want Democrats to sweep the 2026 election to think that Republicans may have done a historically poor job of trying to appeal to the basic hopes and interests of average voters. The latest evidence we have for that is a bizarre surge in online support among various pockets of MAGA world for Star Wars ‘ Anakin Skywalker, AKA Darth Vader .

“Yes, it seems that while the fan fiction website Archive of Our Own (AO3) will remain shut down for the foreseeable future, MAGA conservatives are picking up the slack, using the last hours before the 2026 midterms to imagine themselves and Trump-aligned candidates as the disciples of a genocidal archvillain from a space opera,” reported Wired this week.

If you spend any time on X, you may have been exposed to its $865 billion net-worth owner, Elon Musk, sharing genAI slop of what Anakin Skywalker might have done if he’d never been defeated by Obi-Wan Kenobi and left to burn in the lava on Mustafar.…