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Last week the screenwriter for the 2006 satirical science fiction comedy Idiocracy came out and said his film’s nightmare vision of a country run by improperly bred morons had indeed come true:
I never expected #idiocracy to become a documentary.
— Etan Cohen (@etanjc) February 24, 2016
This was predictably followed by a series of editorials, think pieces and takes that seem to confirm this theory: Trump was a product of an indefinable “dumbing down” of our political environment:
Is Donald Trump the Herald of ‘Idiocracy’?
The Many Signs That Mike Judge’s ‘Idiocracy’ Is Upon Us
Idiocracy’ at 10: Mike Judge’s Cult Film Saw America Run by Imbeciles. Well…
The idiaccuracy of Idiocracy: When life imitates art for better or for the actual worst
It’s no surprise Cohen’s comments would go viral. They fit neatly into a superficially appealing notion that Trump, and the GOP at large, are animated by toothless rednecks and science-denying idiots. While there certainly are both of those, as well as outright white supremacists, in Trump’s constituency, wielding Idiocracy as a kind of political shorthand for...