This world would simply not make it as a movie or novel .Well, it might, but it would be called unbelievable and not worth watching or reading.
We've got a president who was elected to end a couple of pointless colonial wars control the wealthiest 1% put people back to work and give the average person a safe and secure old age not endangered by overwhelming medical bills. A small d democrat who immediately turns around and doubles down on two colonial wars and decides to protect the people who started those wars and everything that went with them. Domestically he cuts deals with large corporations so that money can be funneled directly from his supporters to these corporations against all that he claimed to be in favor of and what the people who voted for him really wanted. He does all this more or less openly or ineptly (secret meetings that turn out to be so unsecret that they become known within weeks of their occurring).
He fills his administration with people who are "very important people," but people who have been wrong in everything they have attempted or proposed in their public lives.
While all this is going on and during all the debates on his programs he personally strongly discourages his supporters from demonstrating in favor of what were thought to be his positions and therefore allows the opposition to grab and control the message and to whip up anti-administration fervor.
He makes no real attempt to pass legislation that will help the majority of people who voted for him. But then all the stops are pulled out to pass legislation that in its final form is widely hated by large numbers of his supporters.
Top this off with a fan base that essentially remains loyal no matter what the leader does and we have a very bad political novel or movie I think.
If I were to read this I would simply throw it down half way through and say unbelievable.
2 comments:
Actually, I found watching Babylon 5 really good training for the last decade. It featured a takeover of government by an ambitious leader who got what he wanted by whipping up prejudice against outsiders. There was no direct equivalent of the Obama Administration there, but that's probably what would have happened had Our Heroes not come through.
I hadn't thought about that, but thought of a number of other dystopian works after I finished.
I'm currently reading "The Girl Wio Kicked the Hornets Nest," not a bad novel, but it does probably affect my thinking a little.
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