A classic Hollywood political thriller may tell us more about what's happening in America
Last edited Sat Feb 25, 2017, 08:16 PM - Edit history (1)
This article by Neal Gabler makes a lot of sense, unfortunately.
The Manchurian President
A classic Hollywood political thriller may tell us more about what's happening in America than any history book.
As the Trump presidency unravels, unraveling the country along with it, there is no real political antecedent, no lessons from American history on which to draw and provide guidance. We are in entirely uncharted waters.
But there is an antecedent in our popular culture that provides a prism through which to view the contemporary calamity, especially the alleged collusion between Trump’s henchmen and Russian intelligence to deny Hillary Clinton the presidency. I am not the first observer who has noted the relevance of the movie The Manchurian Candidate. But the relevance is more than skin or celluloid deep. It goes to the very heart of this bizarre and frightening political moment.
First, the fact that this implausibly plotted Hollywood thriller could now be applied, not altogether implausibly, to a sitting American president demonstrates just how far off the rails this country has gone. Outlandish plots suddenly seem credible, and not just to conspiracy theorists.
It isn’t just the possibility that we had a Manchurian candidate for the presidency. It is the possibility that we now have a Manchurian president, a Manchurian Congress and a Manchurian government.
Second, and perhaps more significantly, the film demonstrates not only how much our narrative bearings have been lost but also our political and moral bearings, and how an admittedly paranoid movie may actually be insufficiently paranoid when it comes to our new reality. It isn’t just the possibility that we had a Manchurian candidate for the presidency. It is the possibility that we now have a Manchurian president, a Manchurian Congress and a Manchurian government.
http://billmoyers.com/story/the-manchurian-president/
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