In a couple of weeks, Idiocracy the movie (not to be confused with: Idiocracy the American President) will celebrate twelve years since its release. Only, nobody will be celebrating, because the film appeared with zero fanfare back in 2006. The dark comedy’s edgy message—that America was doomed to a future of dystopian idiocy—was deemed too controversial for a major release a dozen years ago, and its distributor, 20th Century Fox, pretty much buried it, showing the film in only a handful of cities.
Over the past dozen years, however, Idiocracy has become a cult classic, its inevitably weak performance in cinemas notwithstanding. Its creator, Mike Judge, who has given us such pop-culture classics as King of the Hill and Office Space, now looks like a prophet without honor back in 2006. Judge’s essential message, that idiocy was taking over the country, seems to have been borne out by recent events, above all the election of Donald J. Trump as president in 2016.
It’s difficult to expunge the whiff of Idiocracy surrounding our 45th president, with his error-filled tweets betraying a shaky command of the English language, contrary to his claim of possessing “a very good brain.” As candidate, Trump proclaimed, “I love the poorly educated,” and that, unlike many of his assertions, may actually be true. This, after all, is a commander-in-chief who belligerently can’t tell the difference between napalm and Agent Orange.
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