I began reading two best-selling assassin series during the past few years: the Gray Man series by Mark Greaney and the American Assassin/Mitch Rapp series by Vince Flynn. Up until the 2024 election and Donald Trump’s victory, these books were only pleasurable reading.

In both series, there are always the good guys — the assassin-protagonists — who, despite their violent methods, are depicted as moral figures striving to protect the country. Then there are the bad guys — terrorists, corrupt foreign operatives and threats to national security. And finally, there are the politicians and power figures in Washington.

Some of these officials are smart and supportive of the assassins’ work, recognizing the grim necessities of counterterrorism and espionage. Others are self-involved, more concerned with personal ambition, and cannot be counted on to grasp the real dangers facing the country and the need for operatives like Mitch Rapp and Court Gentry. These characters, while worrisome, were just part of the necessary tension that made the stories compelling.

Occasionally, high-level officials are portrayed as outright corrupt and dangerous because they actively set out to undermine national security for personal gain. The main tension in those books revolves around whether the assassin-hero will be able to eliminate such a threat before the dangerous official eliminates him. Despite operating outside the law, these assassins abide by their own code of ethics: they only kill the truly dangerous, those who would bring harm to innocent lives and our national security. That made these books not just thrilling but strangely reassuring.

Until the 2024 election, these books were, in a certain sense, comforting because, whatever the foibles of the Washington politicians and elites, there was always the background assumption that the American democratic system was secure and would ultimately survive all threats, internal and external. The stories, though fictional, operated within a world where democracy, for all its imperfections, remained intact.

Now, however, reading these books engenders a combination of nostalgia and unease bordering on nausea. What was once an engaging, suspenseful fictional world now feels like a relic of a bygone era.

The real world has begun to mirror the darker elements of these stories, but with one key difference. In our new reality, the greatest threats to democracy are not foreign terrorists or rogue intelligence operatives. They are not shadowy figures lurking in the background. They are in plain sight, holding the highest positions of power, and openly attacking the foundations of our democracy.

These politicians and officials who were once depicted as nefarious but were ultimately constrained by democratic norms are now far more dangerous than their fictional counterparts. Many are not merely self-serving — they actively sow division, threaten their adversaries and openly seek to erode democratic institutions. The very system that the fictional superheroes fought to protect is under siege, and there are no real-life counterparts waiting in the wings to save the day.

What once felt like an entertaining yet distant hypothetical now feels disturbingly close to home. As I read each book and wonder how the fictional assassin-hero will stop the latest villain, I find myself worrying about a far more urgent and unsettling question: In our new reality, who will stop these real-life threats before it’s too late?

I know the answer is that it is ultimately we the people who must find ways to stop these new politicians with villainous intent. And, like the heroes of the assassin novels, we will have to be smart and resolute if we are going to succeed.