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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums'Idiocracy' Realized: How Our Current Situation Is Worse Than the Film Predicted
The corporate overlords the movie indicted are creating a world where water is inaccessible to the poor and Trump Nation darkly looms.By Paula Young Lee / AlterNet May 26, 2016
Photo Credit: Kues / Shutterstock
Donald Trump's political ascendancy has made Idiocracy seem like prophecy. (Or, per a viral tweet by the films screenwriter, a documentary.) As satire, however, Idiocracy is uneven, precisely because recent events have already exceeded its most trenchant bits of lunacy. In the fictional Idiocracy future, Congress is full of idiots who do nothing but yell, Youre a dick! at the president. But those antics pale in comparison to stunts pulled by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Trump, a billionaire real-estate developer and reality TV show star whose foreign policy proposals include telling China, Listen, you motherfuckers, were going to tax you 25 percent! In 2009, Trump purchased the rights to pro-wrestling show Monday Night Raw and then sold them back to the previous owner for twice the price, according to the World Wrestling Entertainment website. Since then, the WWE Hall of Famer [has] focused on his ever-expanding real estate empire, his Emmy-nominated reality television show The Apprentice and running for president of the United States.
Mike Judge may be a funny guy, but his mind isnt exactly subtle. A decade ago when Idiocracy was released, he was already treading well-worn ground by envisioning a future where being unable to pay debts is a crime (see: the return of debtors prison), the Violence Channel dominates the networks (see: all of cable), and a plotless film about a farting white ass wins Best Screenplay at the Academy Awards (see: Swiss Army Man, starring Daniel Radcliffe as a farting corpse).
Full article: http://www.alternet.org/media/corporate-trump-nation-made-america-worse-idiocracy
Bbm. I just wanted to highlight this because I don't believe the U.S. is a nation of idiots, by any means (and this same thing is happening not just in the U.S.) - but to agree with the author (imo) that it's been a strategy for decades, by all those he mentioned. Many countries may use violent repression to deny education and knowledge of events around the world - corporations have their dirty fingers into enough of everything in 'advanced nations' that they don't need to.
madville
(7,413 posts)The seal on the podium says "House of Representin'", always thought that was hilarious.
Press Virginia
(2,329 posts)highprincipleswork
(3,111 posts)might say.
GreenEyedLefty
(2,073 posts)okieinpain
(9,397 posts)For this mess but I don't want to come off as a bigot. So I'll just give a +100 on this thread.
alterfurz
(2,476 posts)n2doc
(47,953 posts)Camacho at least recognized that there was a problem and chose the right person to fix it. tRump would tell us all those crops were Yuuuge! and everything was even better than before.
Aristus
(66,531 posts)ever had.
I was in a funk for days after seeing it.
I haven't watched it all the way through after that one time.
I've tried to come back to it based on its guarded optimism; that even the idiots of the future know there's a problem and want someone smart to fix it.
But an America in which Donald Trump is a major-party candidate for the Presidency is too close to the film to want to go back and watch it.