It’s a novel, but “It Can’t Happen Here” follows a scenario where a populist becomes President and removes all opposition.
this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
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You can treat Costa Gavras movies like a series: Z, State of Siege, Missing
Elysium; the Matt Damon movie where the rich live on a space station and leave the rest of us to rot.
I'm not saying it's what's going on right this moment, but it's the end-goal of everything that Musk, Bezos, etc... are doing.
Idiocracy
VEEP
Seriously. “Today the secretary of defense with a drinking problem reveals military secrets to a reporter due to a texting error.”
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The historical precedent is the rise of Nazi Germany during the 1920s and 1930s. You should now be somewhere in the early 1930s.
To get spoilers, watch Downfall.
And Canada and Greenland are Poland.
or Poland and Austria
I find the last days of the Qing dynasty China to be somewhat analogous. Institutional rot, rampant corruption, a complete failure to adapt to crises and open hostility to anyone proposing workable solutions or trying to learn from foreign examples. Basically the two voices in government were, "Learn how guns work while completely refusing to understand the scientific principles that allowed them to be developed" and "Learn absolutely nothing." The "lesser evil" was woefully inadequate, and once the government finally collapsed, both factions that emerged (communists and nationalist) were far more influenced by Western ideas than even the most radical in the Qing government were.
The movie Her. It’s really close and accurate to ChatGPT, but worse.
You wish, that thing actually worked. What we have is a bullshit generator with the confidence of a brother in law.
The wave of fascism going throughput Europe in the 19th and 20th century of course.
But the state of the American people is also portrayed well in The Hunger Games (books and movies).
Idiocracy
They found the smartest person in the world and listened to them to fix their problems... Not at all accurate.
We're in the time he was frozen. We have 40 years or so before that part happens.
Once zoomers can vote and Mr Beast gets elected, things will change.
I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
Over half of Zoomers can already vote. Gen Z is roughly 1997-2012.
Unfortunately the younger they are the more likely they are to be conservative it seems. More poisoned by the algorithms.
we're in the "what if they didn't" timeline....
We’re only 20 years after Joe got frozen and he hasn’t been thawed yet. We still have 480 years before things get that bad.
Pretty sure we're speed running that part.
Who knows. We need a movie set in between the time frames we see to tell us.
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There’s a satirical (well, don’t know how long it will be considered that) movie about it… it’s called Idiocracy
It's a great movie, but the eugenics theme is bullshit. The causes of modern decline have nothing to do with the half-baked idea that idiots will overrun the world through breeding.
Idiots aren't born in increasing waves, they're made by chronically underfunding education and flooding the world with propaganda and manipulative social media algorithms.
I would much rather have Camacho as president than Cheeto Benito.
Terry Crews 2028!
I used to think this movie was funny but now it's just kind of painful because it's largely true.
Except Camacho was a caring president, in his own way.
He is the most unrealistic part of the film, he had a problem, found the most qualified person to fix it, listened to them (eventually), and then didnt take credit for it.
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The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. Great book and a TV miniseries. An alternative history that has Lindbergh winning the presidency in the 30s and the US government enacting fascism domestically. The book does a great job of portraying the chaos that ensues. The series is also very good.
Leaving off with an ellipsis makes it look like I should click your comment to continue reading.
As intended!
Andor
Just started watching that show recently and it's so amazing I'm surprised Disney allowed it to be made. The parallels to the current state of society are so apparent. In one of the episodes of Season 2 a character says "Why can't they just leave us alone" and that resonated with me so much
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The Man in the High Castle.
Babylon Berlin
1984 by George Orwell
Not TV (at least not that I am aware of), but it was the first thing to come to my mind. They made a movie if you prefer but, as always, you'll get more from the book.
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The Prequel to Schindler's List
The Twilight Zone (2019), "The Wunderkind"
Synopsis: A down-on-his-luck campaign manager (John Cho) is determined to get a kid (Jacob Tremblay) elected as the next President of the United States.
A lot of what he talks about prior to previous insurrections are pretty similar to what's happening now.
Oh hey, it's the same host as Behind the Bastards. Thanks for the recommendation!
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The bobiverse series (about a guy who is hit by a car right after signing up for a cryogenics thing and then wakes in the future to find out he's basically been legislated to have no rights and is stuck into a self-replicating drone for space exploration, it's pretty good) kind of starts off setting the backstory like it. The christofascism just started a bit later.
Obviously it's not one to one but given Trump's performative Christianity it was all I could think about around the failed coup on Jan 6.
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