When I was a kid, I loved Dragon Ball Z. A captivating world filled with action-packed fights and, best of all, our hero Goku always beating the bad guy and saving the day. Just one little problem, though: Goku loses most of the fights against actual villains. He has some victories, but most of those are against weaker foes that don’t pose any real threat. So if his actual track record is so bad, why do we remember Goku as a winner?
In the first saga of DBZ, Goku is attacked and beaten by Raditz. Only by teaming up with his old foe Piccolo—and sacrificing his own life—can Goku defeat him. The series is full of these situations where Goku is defeated by a greater opponent. But because each saga sees Goku training and getting stronger, a few episodes later he’s not only far more powerful than Raditz was, he’s ready to challenge an even stronger villain: Vegeta—who Goku also loses to.
That cycle—where a tough adversary is introduced, Goku grows strong enough to match them, and then an even more formidable villain appears and beats him—repeats again and again. But whenever we see Goku being defeated, we know he was still way stronger than the last foe he struggled against. The Goku who held his own against Vegeta would have defeated Raditz without any help at all.
The chief factor in thinking of Goku as unstoppable is sentimentality. I had Dragon Ball toys as a kid, VHS tapes, video games, clothing, trading cards. If they made cheap consumer goods with Goku’s face on them in the late 90s or early 2000s, I wanted them. The show would always end on a cliffhanger with the narrator saying, “Find out next week on Dragon Ball Z,” and it left my young mind wondering when Goku was finally going to be strong enough to beat the bad guy. Always thinking of Goku as coming to save the day left an imprint on how we remember characters like him.
Goku fans are some of the most diehard fanatics. They’ll insist that Goku can beat any foe, no matter how silly the matchup. Invulnerable characters like Superman can survive the vacuum of space, while Goku is susceptible to simple things like viruses. Superman was created to examine philosophical questions like “Should Superman do something?”—not “Can Superman do something?” The writing in Superman comics is fundamentally different from DBZ. Superman wouldn’t ask if he can beat Goku; he would ask if he should beat Goku.
That mix of nostalgia and persistent rooting for a character clearly has a powerful effect on our worldview. Regularly cheering for Goku gets people cheering even when it’s impossible to win. When media persistently tells us to root for something, it affects us. This is true for cartoons, but more ominously, it’s true for politics as well.
The Democratic Party is always falling flat on its face. Losing to Trump twice, losing the presidency after every second term, losing to the right when they roll back victories like Roe v. Wade. The Dems are a bunch of losers. But because media always gives us a villain to root against, we can end up being too sympathetic to them.
Despite having a foreign policy that’s indistinguishable from the Republicans’, liberals will argue that their party’s foreign policy is more civil. People who receive the bombs we drop don’t care how “civil” the bombs are.
Goku loses many fights throughout the show. He loses to Captain Ginyu, Android 19, and Majin Vegeta; all side characters who pale in comparison to their respective main villains. But because the narrator always ends episodes with lines like “Will Goku defeat his foes? Will anybody stop the bad guy? Find out next week on Dragon Ball Z,” we think of Goku as a winner.
Goku only has a few real victories that end hostilities, like defeating Lord Frieza and Majin Buu. But the buildup to those victories takes time and creates suspense; just like the Democrats going through election cycles where they usually lose, only to sometimes narrowly surpass their opposition.
People who argue that Goku can beat any character are locked into a certain worldview. They see that character exclusively through the lens of rooting for him. This control over worldview is exactly why people keep supporting the Democratic Party, they can’t help but view the Dems through the lens of rooting for them.
Republican media uses the same trick. MAGA supporters can’t help but root for Trump after spending so much time listening to people they respect root for Trump. The Dems fail to stop Republican propaganda—the source of MAGA fanaticism—because they use the same type of propaganda.
Goku spends most of his screen time training, eating, and healing. But the DBZ narrator makes us think about Goku in a fight by always bringing up whether or not he’ll defeat the villain. That’s why people see Goku as a perpetual combatant. They don’t stop to think about why Superman would even fight Goku—he’d be his friend.
Bourgeois media talks about elections as if this is just the way things are. But most other countries don’t have first-past-the-post elections where the majority takes all. There are elections with multiple rounds that eliminate the candidates with the fewest votes. Some elections award different duties of office to runner-ups with significant support. Elections that yield presidents who visited Epstein Island aren’t okay—we need to stop acting like they are.
I personally outgrew Dragon Ball years ago, but I’m glad people found something that inspires them in this miserable world. It’s a good thing that people watch a silly little cartoon and get so emotional they can’t help but talk about how much they believe in Goku. But it’s not so cute when you realize politicians use this same concept to manipulate the masses.
The Dems fail to stop the genocide in Gaza, and they fail to stop the endless march of our war machine. They fail to solve the homelessness crisis or provide affordable healthcare. Why would anyone think they would succeed in stopping us if we tried to replace them? We don’t need political parties that always fail us; we deserve a political system that actually represents working-class interests. Not just a working class party in a system built to serve the wealthy. We need an entirely new system built from the ground up to serve the entirety of the working class.
If you think Goku can defeat Superman but that we can’t change the political landscape, you need to understand that Goku believes you can. Goku defeats some very powerful foes, and he does it by training and building himself up. His real power is his attitude of never giving up, no matter how menacing his opponent is. We need that conviction. We need to believe in ourselves like that. We can defeat any economic system that does not represent our interests. We have the power to change the world—and the first step in changing the world is believing that we can.
